Student News: Tips & Tricks From Lynn Montana Freeman

Escoffier Online: Tips & Tricks

A few weeks ago, we asked our students to share any tips and tricks they’ve found for being successful in the Escoffier Online program. Here are two helpful tricks from one of our students enrolled in both Culinary Fundamentals and Pastry Arts:

Two Programs At Once … And Working Full Time!

Because I work full time, any free time that I have I like to devote to my training. Unfortunately, I also have a house to clean, laundry to do and other daily living errands that must get done. How dare my life impede on my studies!

I encourage you to develop a routine. For the most part, I do my best to take one day off a week and focus on pastry and the other day off I focus on culinary.  I also try to devote one full hour of study every day.  It does not always work out this way, and my greatest obstacle is recognizing the need and allowing myself to miss an evening of study, or an entire day, and just recently an entire week, without beating myself up about it. Sometimes you just have to deal with your life and put the studies to the side. Do not feel badly about this. You will get back to your coursework and you will be clear headed because everything else that was muddling around in your brain is gone.

Do not overwhelm yourself with feeling like you absolutely MUST get all assessments for one course program done in the same day.  Sometimes you will have to do one on your first day off and the other on the next.  I do not recommend trying to do an assessment in the evening after work. You really want to be mentally prepared and have plenty of time to accomplish great work product. Doing assessments when you are fresh and free of obligations on your day off will make that happen more easily.

Most importantly, do not get discouraged when you feel you are not progressing as quickly as you would like. Take your time and do it right. Practice your knife cuts every chance you get (I ate … and am still eating … a heck of a lot of soup and roasted vegetables!); make sure you are really absorbing all that you are studying and not just going through the motions to get it done; take advantage of your fellow students, Chef Mentors and technical support; and trust the process – this all guarantees your success.

Portal Issues

There are some portal issues that pop up on occasion. They actually are easily remedied with a call to technical support or an email to the helpdesk. I was told Google Chrome would eliminate some problems I was having, but it does not fix all issues.  For example, sometimes the tiles in a course program will not be checked off, even though you went through the entire program.  There are two ways to fix this: You can zip through the tiles (except for the checkpoints, but that is good review) and then they will be checked off, or you can just call the helpdesk and they can complete the tiles for you.  I like to do the review.  If it happens more than once, I pick up the phone and call support!

When you open up the web archives, a whole bunch of archived videos will start playing all at once. Do not panic! Call the helpdesk and they can tell you how to copy a link from the archived webinar you want to see and paste it into a new window to view. You can then close out the archived webinar page so you do not have to listen to all that simultaneous talking and you will not be using up your computer’s memory.

PicMonkey

Set a “favorites” tab to PicMonkey.com — it will make your presentations wonderful!  You can do all kinds of setups with your photos, including highlighting a main photo and then tile other pictures to show the path that got you there.  Warning:  It is addictive, and you will want to put tons of photos in one little section.  My Chef Mentor told me they take a long time to load on the computer, and they are very difficult to see.  Limit yourself to one main and maybe three or four others, or six evenly tiled photos altogether.

Studying for your Quizzes

To review for your quizzes, you definitely want to review all checkpoints in the sections lessons. This really helps. Take copious notes when reviewing the individual tiles, especially if there are calculations involved (this happens mostly in the pastry program).  Know the formulas so you can apply them to the test questions.  Do not worry if you fail the quiz – you can take it a total of three times, and then, if needed, your Chef Mentor will discuss your progress with you.

Chef Mentors / Technical Support

TAKE ADVANTAGE OF YOUR SUPPORT TEAM!!!  The Chef Mentors are thrilled to help. They love taking your calls and giving you whatever assistance and advice they are able to give.  Technical support is responsive, and their actions are immediate. Always try to figure any issue out first – technical or culinary.  But do not sit in frustration – call your support team whenever you truly need their help!

Thanks to Lynn for her tips!  If you have your own tips and tricks that you’d like to share, please email [email protected] with “Escoffier Tips & Tricks” in the subject line. We appreciate your feedback!

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