Valerie Valcourt is living what some may think about the dream life: The 34- year-old previous executive assistant stopped her tech task over a year earlier and now makes pastries in the South of France.
She just recently went viral on TikTo k for publishing her experience of altering professions in her 30 s: “Don’t let society try to trick you into thinking that it’s too late to start over or that you have to choose one set path,” she states in the video.
Valcourt lives by that mindset: Back in 2020, Valcourt was working her Big Tech business task in Seattle earning simply over $100,000 after bonus offers and equity however sensation “at a really low place” and questioning: “What would I want to be doing that would bring me joy?”
She’d constantly wished to go to cooking school abroad and, after some online research study, sent her application to a French school on an impulse. She got accepted in October 2020 and resigned from her day task not long after. But, she now confesses, she wasn’t prepared to make such a huge life modification.
“I ended up kind of falling on my face,” Valcourt informs CNBC MakeIt “I didn’t have enough saved, and I didn’t realize the mental toll it would take to quit my job at the time.” So, she put cooking school on the backburner and rejoined the business world to arrange things out.
More research study, cost savings and a 2nd effort
Valcourt understood she would require to double her cost savings to approximately $20,000 to live off of while in school. To accelerate her cost savings, she handled a brand-new executive assistant task and moved from Seattle to New York and lastly to Connecticut to cope with her household.
By the spring of 2022, she was feeling restored.
She invested more time investigating schools that would assist her discover French in addition to cooking strategies through an internship positioning. She arrived at a school in the south of France called Gastronomicom and connected to a previous trainee on Instagram to get a feel for the experience.
Tuition varies from 4,300 euros ($ 4,666) for 2 months of simply cooking lessons, or as much as 18,700 euros ($20,290) for a year-long program with cooking lessons, pastry lessons, French lessons and an internship.
Valcourt states she didn’t require any previous cooking understanding to register– “they just want people who are enthusiastic.”
She formally relocated to France in January 2023 and started her sped up three-month program of extensive pastry courses and French lessons, followed by a four-month internship. All in, she paid about 10,000 euros ($10,850) for tuition and another 1,800 euros ($ 1,953) for real estate.
A future in France
Valcourt cruised through classes. Her very first internship got encompassed 6 months, and after that she got employed to work full-time as a pastry assistant at the dining establishment Maison Chabran in Pont- de-l’Isere, France.
She makes approximately 20,000 euros ($21,705) a year, and her company covers her seasonal real estate (a minimum of till April, when a brand-new intern class begins). When she ultimately discovers her own home, Valcourt anticipates to pay approximately 300 euros ($326) each month for a studio or 500 euros ($543) each month for a 1-bedroom home.
Valcourt states the very best features of her pastry task are discovering brand-new abilities and dealing with her hands. Looking back, she’s grateful her very first shot at cooking school didn’t turn out. She required more time to construct her psychological self-confidence, “because being in a kitchen is no joke.”
While she and her French coworkers strive, Valcourt states she’s shocked by their mindset around rest.
“The French are very adamant about not working overtime,” she states. “When it’s time to stop, it’s time to stop. Go home and rest.”
Valcourt states she does not have a five-year strategy however typically wishes to discover as numerous cooking and pastry strategies as possible, and view as much of France while she can. Her next objective: conserving up for a vehicle to drive around the countryside.
She feels lucky her school and companies have actually assisted her with the required visas to remain in the nation, and she presently has an irreversible employment agreement with her business, which utilizes numerous foreign and seasonal employees.
Her guidance to fantasizing career-changers
These days, Valcourt typically speaks with other business U.S. employees who wish to stop and begin a brand-new profession. Her finest guidance to them: Explore what you like to do everyday, and different what you wish to do as a pastime versus working for yourself or under somebody else as an occupation.
Consider, what is it you like about your existing type of work? What about your previous work? What do you not like about work? Can you discover a brand-new profession that does not consist of that element, or will you need to resolve incompatibilities?
Finally, she includes, do not put excessive pressure on yourself to have whatever found out. One huge assistance is having an excellent support group of good friends, household and coworkers when things get hard.
“If you’re in that kind of place where you’re trying to figure out what you want to do, take it as an opportunity to be able to explore,” Valcourt states. “Don’t see it as something that’s negative. Looking at it with curiosity, being open to what excites you and focusing on that is a really good way to start.”
Conversions from euros to USD were done utilizing the OANDA conversion rate of 1 euro to 1.09 USD on March 5,2024 All quantities are rounded to the closest dollar.
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