Эссе: Линси много читала, снимала короткометражные фильмы, рисовала веселые комиксы и изучала кулинарное искусство. Сегодня она знает все о сыре. Линси - "сырная" королева!
Линси всегда была незаурядным человеком. Аутсайдер по природе, она много читала, снимала короткометражные любительские фильмы, рисовала комиксы, да и вообще работала в куче необычных мест. Судьба привела Линси в кулинарный колледж, заставивший ее пересмотреть свои взгляды на жизнь...
Она стала по-другому относиться к людям, их увлечениям, интересам и воззрениям. Она научилась слушать и понимать. Она стала отличным членом команды и прекрасным поваром, преданным, творческим и самоотверженным. Спустя пять лет, Линси поняла, что хочет изменить что-то в своей жизни. Тогда она узнала все о сыре и превратилась в "сырную" королеву!
Until I went to culinary school, it was inconceivable to me that I had an elitist bone in my body. In high school and at Harvard, I prided myself on being an outsider and a rebel. During my college years, I immersed myself in art, volunteered at quirky cultural organizations, worked part-time jobs in interesting places and had intelligent friends who were just like me. I made movies and videos and contributed artwork to local comic books. I was different from my peers, I thought. I was of the people. I was more real than my classmates, the ones who aspired to control the economies of their various homelands and influence and shape the cultural landscape. I was special. And then I went to culinary school.
I can't imagine an experience as jarring to my self-perception than that of my first year in culinary school. My values were turned upside-down. lt was neither non-conformity nor intelligence that succeeded in the kitchen; it was youth, it was talent, it was strength, it was stamina, speed and coordination. It had nothing to do with education, intelligence, money, background or life experience.
My background was of little help to me here. Success required an entirely new skill set, a different sort of intelligence, a competitive drive that I did not know if I possessed and an openness to other people who in a past life I would have avoided. To learn how to survive in this environment, I befriended the 17-year-old vocational school graduates who comprised 20 percent of my class, the 23-year-old cooks who had been in the kitchen since high school and some of the older career-changers who were formerly police officers or nurses or house painters. No longer was a similar background, academic achievement, documented intelligence or the use of proper grammar in daily speech determining whom I would choose as friends. My new criteria were simple: I sought out kind, respectful and thoughtful people who were unselfish and possessed a work ethic equal to my own. Intelligence, I realized, had many forms, and for too many years my blindness to this fact had limited my experience and my friendships.
I spent the years following culinary school extracting myself from my personal history. I worked twice as hard as anyone else in the kitchen to avoid having Harvard barbs thrown my way. If I did anything haphazardly or slowly, my pampered Harvard background was probably to blame. If I said anything that seemed strange or overly educated to my kitchen colleagues, it was because I was that show-off from Harvard. At some workplaces I didn't even mention that I had a college degree. It didn't always seem appropriate and often that knowledge brought out the worst in my co-workers. I wanted to be seen for who I was, for what I was capable of, for my creativity and skill in the kitchen, not for my education or my background. And over time I succeeded.
As a professional cook, I learned that status came from the professional resume and from the singular pursuit of the "foodie" lifestyle. A stint at Trotter's, an internship at the French Laundry or a stage in France added considerable credibility and respect. Diverse experiences were encouraged, and frequent job changes were expected in the industry. Vacations and free evenings spent in pursuit of the perfect meal or dining in legendary restaurants also lent a certain mystique to a cook. I embraced the lifestyle, growing my own organic vegetables during the summer, planning my vacations around great restaurants, joining and participating in every food-related group I could find and saving my salary for frequent fine dining experiences, where I always found inspiration. I spent nearly six years completely absorbed in the food world. I even dreamed about it. For the dedicated cook, work was a 24-hour job. It was the only way to attain culinary perfection.
I found, however, that I needed to extend my experience beyond the kitchen. I needed balance; I needed time for my new martial arts training, which was scheduled during evening hours when I was usually at work in the kitchen, and I needed to learn more about the business of food. I became a cheesemonger, a seller of cheese, in a brand-new retail market in a college neighborhood.
My new job freed up my evenings and gave me invaluable business experience. It also made good use of my culinary background. I studied cheese, the latest trend in the culinary world, as if it were an academic subject; within a month I knew everything about the 350 cheeses in my shop.
I used my food background to explain flavor and food matching to my customers and to help them plan their meals. I enjoyed educating my customers and my co-workers and even received a little publicity in the Atlanta Journal - Constitution and on a Food Network TV show. I was asked to teach cheese classes.
When I went out to eat, I was frequently greeted by, "Hello, cheese lady!" I became friends with the local dining critics, an assortment of chefs and other food notables. Within six months I was the city's foremost authority on cheese. Because of my unusual specialization and my lucky timing, I had quickly attained a position in the local food scene that I could never have achieved in the kitchen in the same amount of time. My minor celebrity, however, wasn't as important to me as watching my customers, colleagues and friends catch my contagious enthusiasm for the unusual food products to which I introduced them.
Doing professionally what most people think of as only a hobby has made me more open, receptive and willing to look beyond the surface to see the best in others. In the process, I have become less judgmental and more aware that difference is something to seek out, not avoid, in others. I have re-examined my values and the resulting changes have significantly broadened my experiences and friendships and have permitted me greater professional and personal opportunity.
Многие думают, что научиться писать совершенные эссе можно только после многочасовых медитаций в саду камней. Однако мы убеждены, что проще и эффективнее задать вопрос профессионалу.
Семинар разработан для кандидатов на МВА и мастерские программы, которым предстоит писать эссе для поступления в западные бизнес школы или университеты.
IE Business School приглашает на мастер-класс профессора Ли Ньюмана "Behavioral Decision Making: Predictably biased and we don't even know it", который состоится 23 мая в отеле "Хилтон".
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