What follows is a likely, yet entirely hypothetical future.

I have been an underemployed and unemployed financial research editor since early December. I live in one of the most economically depressed areas in the country (Ohio). For the most part, all I have done since getting laid off from my job at a think tank is cook and bake. Given the enjoyment I've had and the lack of other opportunity here, I have made the decision to attend bread school, most likely the Art of International Bread Baking program at the FCI in Manhattan, which is convenient to my budget (barely) and schedule (very).

I'm hoping to accomplish the following:

1. Learn to actually make something, unlike in my fomer career as a desk jockey.
2. Have a true career to fall back on should the economy collapse further.
3. Make and eat a LOT of awesome bread.
4. Do something I actually enjoy.
5. Do something that makes others happy.
6. Wear shorts and a t-shirt to work at 2:00 am.
7. Get the hell out of Ohio.
8. Open my own bakery after some period of apprenticeship.

If everything works out and I begin this fall, I will be blogging and photographing the entirety of the experience. I was just wondering if the readership of TFL would be interested in following me through the program and a new career as a professional baker.

What would the readership of TFL like to know about the experience?  I really feel that this would be a great opportunity to share with such an involved community of bread heads and the blogging would be mostly for you, not me. Unless, of course, someone would like to pay me for it :) Obviously, I can share techniques, recipes, tricks, and anecdotes, but is there anything you would like to know specifically?

Corey

This might seem like a weird place to vent a bit, but I'm going to give it a go.  I feel stuck.  I'm a 26 year old man who feels as though any opportunity has passed him by.  I've been working steady as a painter for the last 5 years, all the while growing more and more passionate about baking.  i bake as much as my schedule, and my budget, allows me to - and I love it.  My question is what do I do?  I went to almost every bakery in my hometown (Omaha,NE) and one of the managers (Wheatfields) actually said that I was too old to teach, the others either weren't interested or weren't hiring.  I never felt more worthless in my life.  Even though I knew the man at Wheatfields was wrong, it left me feeling very despondent, and extremely skeptical as to whether or not a career in baking was really for me.  Maybe the cards were just dealt differently.  

What's your advice?  For those of you that are bakers out there, or who own bakeries, what are you looking for?  Is a four-year degree what makes or breaks it?  Is it passion?  Is it trainability? Perception? Personality? I feel as though I'm trying as hard as I possibly can to really make a go at learning more and more about the art of bread, but I'm doing it alone.  A no one will take a chance on me.  

Again, this really does sound like a confessional, I apologize.  I figure who better to ask than people who are as passionate about bread as I!  Really, any advice at all would be appreciated.  The main question, really, is would spending $20,000 on an education just to have a degree in baking be worth it?  

 Thanks everyone

 Localfruitandveg