Observations From My First Day at LCB

Spending five hours watching demonstrations this afternoon has not put my brain in a prosaic mood, so here’s a list of things I noted today.

- The student body is extremely international. In fact, there is only one French national currently enrolled. My class alone (of about 50) has students from Estonia, Brazil, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Australia, Mexico, Russia, India and more.

- Classes are predominantly female (true for both cuisine and pâtisserie), which I find surprising because the restaurant industry is notoriously male-dominated.

- The gender ratio is worse for pâtisserie. (Only 4-5 men in my class).

- Of the women in pâtisserie, the majority are Asian.

- There is a huge age range. Some students look to be about my parents’ age, while the youngest in my class is 17. Props to her. I was nowhere near brave/mature/independent enough at that age to live abroad on my own.

- I overheard more than several students state that their reason for studying at LCB was that they were going through a career change - from finance. All I have to say about that is I’m not surprised. Like at all.

- Taking the Metro home from class, I met an older student from Seattle! He claimed we were the only people at LCB from the Northwest. He also used to be in finance, but is now four months into the Grand Diplôme program (which includes cuisine, pâtisserie and sommellerie). I guess without ten years of investment banking behind him, he wouldn’t be able to bankroll tuition on top of the cost of living in Paris for that long.