Valerie Valcourt resides what some would possibly take into account the dream life: The 34-year-old former government assistant stop her tech job over a 12 months in the past and now makes pastries within the South of France.
She lately went viral on TikTok for posting her expertise of fixing careers in her 30s: “Do not let society attempt to trick you into considering that it is too late to start out over or that you need to select one set path,” she says within the video.
Valcourt lives by that mentality: Again in 2020, Valcourt was working her Large Tech company job in Seattle incomes simply over $100,000 after bonuses and fairness however feeling “at a very low place” and questioning: “What would I wish to be doing that might convey me pleasure?”
She’d all the time wished to go to culinary college overseas and, after some on-line analysis, submitted her software to a French college on a whim. She acquired accepted in October 2020 and resigned from her day job quickly after. However, she now admits, she wasn’t able to make such a giant life change.
“I ended up type of falling on my face,” Valcourt tells CNBC Make It. “I did not have sufficient saved, and I did not notice the psychological toll it could take to stop my job on the time.” So, she put culinary college on the backburner and rejoined the company world to type issues out.
Extra analysis, financial savings and a second try
Valcourt realized she would wish to double her financial savings to roughly $20,000 to dwell off of whereas in class. To speed up her financial savings, she took on a brand new government assistant job and moved from Seattle to New York and at last to Connecticut to dwell along with her household.
By the spring of 2022, she was feeling renewed.
She spent extra time researching faculties that might assist her study French in addition to cooking strategies via an internship placement. She landed on a faculty within the south of France referred to as Gastronomicom and reached out to a former pupil on Instagram to get a really feel for the expertise.
Tuition ranges from 4,300 euros ($4,666) for 2 months of simply cooking classes, or as much as 18,700 euros ($20,290) for a year-long program with cooking classes, pastry classes, French classes and an internship.
Valcourt says she did not want any prior culinary data to enroll — “they only need people who find themselves enthusiastic.”
She formally moved to France in January 2023 and commenced her accelerated three-month program of intensive pastry programs and French classes, adopted by a four-month internship. All in, she paid about 10,000 euros ($10,850) for tuition and one other 1,800 euros ($1,953) for housing.
A future in France
Valcourt sailed via lessons. Her first internship acquired prolonged to 6 months, after which she acquired employed to work full time as a pastry assistant on the restaurant Maison Chabran in Pont-de-l’Isere, France.
She earns roughly 20,000 euros ($21,705) a 12 months, and her employer covers her seasonal housing (not less than till April, when a brand new intern class begins). When she finally finds her personal residence, Valcourt expects to pay roughly 300 euros ($326) per 30 days for a studio or 500 euros ($543) per 30 days for a 1-bedroom residence.
Valcourt says the very best issues about her pastry job are studying new expertise and dealing along with her palms. Trying again, she’s grateful her first attempt at culinary college did not pan out. She wanted extra time to construct her psychological confidence, “as a result of being in a kitchen is not any joke.”
Whereas she and her French colleagues work exhausting, Valcourt says she’s stunned by their mentality round relaxation.
“The French are very adamant about not working time beyond regulation,” she says. “When it is time to cease, it is time to cease. Go house and relaxation.”
Valcourt says she does not have a five-year plan however typically desires to study as many cooking and pastry strategies as attainable, and see as a lot of France whereas she will be able to. Her subsequent purpose: saving up for a automobile to drive across the countryside.
She feels lucky her college and employers have helped her with the required visas to remain within the nation, and she or he at present has a everlasting employment contract along with her firm, which employs many international and seasonal employees.
Her recommendation to daydreaming career-changers
Nowadays, Valcourt typically hears from different company U.S. employees who wish to stop and begin a brand new profession. Her greatest recommendation to them: Discover what you love to do day-to-day, and separate what you wish to do as a passion versus working for your self or beneath another person as a career.
Think about, what’s it you want about your present line of labor? What about your earlier work? What do you not like about work? Are you able to discover a new profession that does not embody that side, or will you need to work via incompatibilities?
Lastly, she provides, do not put an excessive amount of strain on your self to have every part discovered. One huge assistance is having a great assist system of associates, household and colleagues when issues get powerful.
“When you’re in that type of place the place you are making an attempt to determine what you wish to do, take it as a chance to have the ability to discover,” Valcourt says. “Do not see it as one thing that is adverse. Taking a look at it with curiosity, being open to what excites you and specializing in that may be a actually good strategy to begin.”
Conversions from euros to USD had been achieved utilizing the OANDA conversion price of 1 euro to 1.09 USD on March 5, 2024. All quantities are rounded to the closest greenback.
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