Valerie Valcourt resides what some would possibly contemplate the dream life: The 34-year-old former government assistant stop her tech job over a yr in the past and now makes pastries within the South of France.
She not too long ago went viral on TikTok for posting her expertise of adjusting 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 must select one set path,” she says within the video.
Valcourt lives by that mentality: Again in 2020, Valcourt was working her Massive Tech company job in Seattle incomes simply over $100,000 after bonuses and fairness however feeling “at a extremely low place” and questioning: “What would I need to be doing that might deliver me pleasure?”
She’d at all times needed to go to culinary faculty overseas and, after some on-line analysis, submitted her software to a French faculty on a whim. She received 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 understand the psychological toll it will take to stop my job on the time.” So, she put culinary faculty 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 reside 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 eventually to Connecticut to reside together with her household.
By the spring of 2022, she was feeling renewed.
She spent extra time researching colleges that might assist her be taught French in addition to cooking strategies by means of an internship placement. She landed on a faculty within the south of France referred to as Gastronomicom and reached out to a former scholar 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 by means of courses. Her first internship received prolonged to 6 months, after which she received 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 yr, and her employer covers her seasonal housing (no less than till April, when a brand new intern class begins). When she ultimately finds her personal house, Valcourt expects to pay roughly 300 euros ($326) per thirty days for a studio or 500 euros ($543) per thirty days for a 1-bedroom house.
Valcourt says one of the best issues about her pastry job are studying new abilities and dealing together with her arms. Wanting again, she’s grateful her first attempt at culinary faculty did not pan out. She wanted extra time to construct her psychological confidence, “as a result of being in a kitchen isn’t 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 dwelling and relaxation.”
Valcourt says she would not have a five-year plan however usually desires to be taught as many cooking and pastry strategies as attainable, and see as a lot of France whereas she will. Her subsequent purpose: saving up for a automobile to drive across the countryside.
She feels lucky her faculty and employers have helped her with the mandatory visas to remain within the nation, and he or she at present has a everlasting employment contract together with her firm, which employs many overseas and seasonal staff.
Her recommendation to daydreaming career-changers
Nowadays, Valcourt typically hears from different company U.S. staff who need to stop and begin a brand new profession. Her finest recommendation to them: Discover what you love to do day-to-day, and separate what you need to do as a passion versus working for your self or below another person as a occupation.
Take into account, 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 embrace that facet, or will you must work by means of incompatibilities?
Lastly, she provides, do not put an excessive amount of stress on your self to have the whole lot discovered. One huge assistance is having a superb help system of mates, household and colleagues when issues get robust.
“When you’re in that type of place the place you are attempting to determine what you need to do, take it as a possibility 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 solution to begin.”
Conversions from euros to USD had been finished utilizing the OANDA conversion price of 1 euro to 1.09 USD on March 5, 2024. All quantities are rounded to the closest greenback.
Wish to land your dream job in 2024? Take CNBC’s new on-line course Methods to Ace Your Job Interview to be taught what hiring managers are actually searching for, physique language strategies, what to say and to not say, and the easiest way to speak about pay.
