I am a high school senior trying to decide on my future. I am interested in the hospitality-management field.?

Question

My question is, should I go to a regular culinary school, or my other idea is to join the Air Force/Air Force Reserves. I am always looking at ways to better myself and what I can get from doing something(schooling,AF,etc) I am not eagerly pursuing a traditional college with all the meat. I just want to learn what is pertinent to what I want to do. The culinary school I am look at is just that. However, the AF might pay all or part of my education. While in the AF I can gain life lessons and learn on the job skills. The AF career that I am looking at is services apprentice. I keep tossing the AF idea around, but I am not sure if the outcome will be any better than just pursuing an education outside the AF. I have an older friend who started off in the AF as a services apprentice like I want to do)and went AF Reserves after his 4 year commitment with the AF to start his own restaraunt. I am also an Eagle Scout, if I join th AF I will enlist at a higher pay-grade than others.opinions pl

Answer 1

Sally's answer is incorrect....kind of....because the military is voluntary and your service to the US is contingent to the contract that you signed prior to enlisting.....YOU choose the job you want. If you don't get offered what you want....you don't sign. So you choose a (it's called an MOS in the army don't know about the AF) job in the culinary field....basically a cook.....for the reserves your options are limited to what's in the area but again....if you don't find what you want, you don't sign the contract....Here's the kind of part...you'll train to be a cook and in the reserves if you are proactive enough (you know 'the sqweeky wheel gets the oil" )you can take advantage of different 'schools', 'training' and 'apprenticeships' the military has to offer....BUT if they need you out on the lines to cook for the servicemen fighting, they'll put you there regardless of what your career path may be.

Answer 2

Hotel, Motel jobs are great fun, and you can learn from the bottom up. Going to culinary school or joining the Air Force reserves would even be possible at the same time. Good Luck!

Answer 3

As a hospitality manager let me tell you that you can expect to work 70 to 90 hours a week. That is not an exaggeration. You will deal with customers that hate you before they even get there. There are inspections that you must pass to do well on, ace to get awards. The paperwork is endless. The staff of elementary school kids that you will be in charge of will make you contemplate whether being a homicidal maniac is really that bad. People have the most bizarre questions and/or problems and they honestly will expect you to have an answer in under three minutes or they will call your franchise 800 to complain. The competition will post nasty lies online and try to hurt your business. You will attend the most boring confrences that you have ever been to in your life. People will sneak dogs in, just to see if they can. Others will trash the place just for fun. Everyday someone will call in sick, except the day the inspector shows up, on that day 10 people will. You will work the shifts that your staff doesn't show up for. Working 24 hours is not against the law if you are salaried. Immoral, yes. But it will be your *** and you will do it. When you fire people they will write letters to the businesses owner telling them that you fired them because they were gay. That fact that you yourself is gay, is irrelevent. Your staff will hook up, then one or the other will scream sexual harrassment as soon as it goes bad. Everyone will need the same day off and if they don't get it, they will call in. You will eat, sleep and breathe numbers. Yes, numbers. It will be your obsesion. Revenue, top line, bottom line, cleaning products, sales, labor, utilities, taxes........These numbers will keep you up all night tossing and turning. Your numbers nightmares will be interuppted by screaming customers that are mad that someone threw out the nasty newspaper they were reading and spilled coffee all over. Your kids will start calling their fathers new girlfriend "mom" because they never see you. You will clean more then you have ever cleaned in your life. You will understaff yourself just so you don't have to pay holiday pay and seriously wonder how much electricity the soda machine uses. You will get paid decent, bonus better and spend it all on your kids so they still love you even though you always manage to miss all of their school functions. You will break up fights, piss off drug dealers and learn to hate the police who always manage to show up when it's busy. Drunk people will throw up on your floors and others in their drug induced state of euphoria will think it funny to break out car windows in the parking lot. You will ask yourself everyday if its all worth it. Then try to remember a time when you did something else.

Answer 4

if you want to serve your country and still go to school, think about the reserves. you will still get some ed money, training from the military, but also be able to go to the school you want to.
good luck

Answer 5

think of it more in this light, culinary school or bullets, hmmmm....think about it- we are basically at war- with all this going on do you really think they will make you a cook?????-hmmmm- your older friend was in service before all this was going on, try to thhink more on a reality level- good luck