I am 26 years old, I took a 1-year course at a cooking school right after I graduated regular school. I’ve been working as a cook in restaurants for the past 6 years.

At school, half the time we would study the theory and the other half was spent training in real restaurants. Training was the time where the “students” were separated from the “workers”. You can’t go to a real workplace and expect to only work regular school-hours. Some things the school teaches also don’t always work at the workplace. You have to learn to be fast and precise, and not spend too much time on every single thing which I learned after I finished the course and got my first job.

The best way to learn professional cooking, in my opinion, is working in a restaurant. Start at the bottom and learn.

The best way to get a job is showing the boss that you WANT TO WORK. Do as the boss says, learn from it. (You can argue with people when you’re more experienced)

Schools can teach a lot of things, and good things too, but the real challenge is applying theory to real life.