Orientation! Uniforms! Knives! Oh My!

The festivities begin! Day 2 and 3 here at the CIA were reserved for Orientation. 

Day 1 Orientation

So as you know, the night before I essentially passed out for 8 or so hours. That was at 7:30pm...so carry the one...square root of that...I woke up around 3:30am. Seeing as how our breakfast service begins at 6:30am, I just decided to stay up. Breakfast took place in one of the main dining halls of Roth Hall called Farquharson Hall or just Farq Hall for short. Like I mentioned before, this whole campus used to be a Jesuit Monastery. Farq Hall just so happens to be the main chapel.

Farquharson Hall

It's kind of amazing. The windows are all original stained glass windows from before the founders of the CIA, Frances Roth and Katharine Angell, purchased the property in 1972. Breakfast was a delicious plate of Eggs Benedict, mixed fruit and a fresh brewed shot of espresso. Sorry...forgot to take a picture. Met up with some new friends from the dorm hall and ate some damn delicious food. After breakfast, we headed over to the Admissions building for the start of Orientation. Lots of people were in line to check in already but the admin were really quick about moving the line along. We all entered one of many demo kitchen lecture rooms and sat down for a welcome speech from one of the deans. Then we proceeded to take care of the logistics and clearance to register: Health Office, Registrar, Financial Aid, Mail Box, and Campus Safety. Here's my new mailing address!

David Wang

CBN# 465

1946 Campus Dr.

Hyde Park, NY 12538

After everything was cleared, they told us to go get measured for our uniforms. Tailored uniforms! How crazy is that? We'll be issued a set of 5 chef jackets, 5 chef pants, an apron, a neckerchief and a toque (the goofy awesome looking chef hat). We also get a servers shirt, vest, and tie for when we take the front of house dining service class. From there, I went over to get my picture taken for my student ID and pick up my shirt for the team building session later in the day. ("Team building exercise 99'!!")

Awww...yeeaa....

From there, I went back down to the Admissions building to take a writing assessment test. Totally rocked it! I got transfer credit for writing and was allowed to opt out of that class. w00t w00t! After that was lunch time. Part of the experience here, especially for us new students is to expand and develop our palates. So as a requirement, we have to eat a 3 course meal called "Banquet" once per day for 5% of our grade in one of our classes. Such torture am I right? >=] These first two days though, we get to eat both lunch and dinner in Banquet. Lunch started off with a puff pastry cup filled with assorted mushrooms, a red wine reduction sauce, and some string beans. The next course was roasted lamb with ratatouille and roasted fingerling potatoes. And for dessert, they served a vanilla bean Crème brûlée. So...awesome... 

(Sorry, no pictures...yet. Cell phones aren't allowed in Banquet.)

After lunch , we continued on to the rest of the orientation process. This all is relatively standard. Introduction and welcomes from various faculty, description of the Student Rec Center (SRC) and a plethora of student services available on campus for us. After that was the team building session. I thought this was going to be super corny and awkward but it was actually a bunch of little stations with various activities to promote different forms of "wellness" and qualities we'll need in the kitchen and the industry. After this session, the faculty spoke a little bit more about the campus and we broke for dinner back at Banquet and ended activities for the night. Realizing that I was still missing some stuff for the dorm, a buddy and I traveled down about 15 minutes down the road to a Target, which apparently is not nearly as available here in the East Coast, in the neighboring town of Poughkeepsie to pick up some stuff. We then went back and met up with some other friends for the gym. I worked out a bit and then went back to the dorm to turn in for the night.

Day 2 Orientation

Day two of orientation began the same as before. Breakfast (decided to go healthy and get a bowl of oatmeal and a banana), then back over to the admissions building for info sessions on campus safety, campus IT, learning center, tutoring, student employment, etc. This was all very standard and mundane so I won't get into it. One thing that was really cool is that the tutoring center actually has a kitchen to allow students to practice technique without any additional charges. I'm so going to be up there practicing knife skills every chance I get! Then the talk about attendance came up. The CIA wants us to understand the importance of attendance in the industry so to train this sense of responsibility into us, we are not allowed to be absent...for anything...at all. Headache? Migraine? Here's some Extra-Strength Tylenol...get your ass to class. Loved one passed away? Here's a tissue...get to class. Broke your leg? Here's a cane, get to class and prop yourself up next to the grill station. Any absence at all is an automatic dropped letter grade. Three absences and the registrar's office automatically fails you. Nothing the instructors and do about it. CRAZY RIGHT?! But it makes sense...if a line cook decides to stay home for Saturday night dinner service cause he's got a hangover from the night before...that kitchen is going to get majorly EFFED.

After all the student service representatives gave their talks, we broke for lunch at....yep...you guessed it...Banquet. Lunch comprised of a prosciutto and grapefruit salad for the appetizer (THIS TASTED AMAZING) , roasted skirt steak with sides for the main course, and dessert was an apple and cherry crumple with Crème anglaise. Crème anglaise is a pouring custard used in many classic desserts. Imagine Crème brûlée in liquid form or vanilla ice cream melted down and warmed then poured over delicious cake or cobbler. Yea that's Crème anglaise.

After lunch we went over to the SRC again for a Q&A session with some current students and a session called "Through the Eyes of a Chef" which was basically a day to day account and advice from one of the chef-instructors. The chef was English and probably had the best talk of the entire Orientation. Unfortunately for us, he's made his way up to an assistant dean and will not be doing any instructing in class. After both sessions, we headed over to the Conrad Hilton Library for a brief talk about dining services and the registrar's office. We then received our class schedules (no writing...w00t!) and were issued our knives and equipment as well as our textbooks for our classes. I can say one thing, I'm beginning to see why tuition is so damn high!

Shinnneeeyy.....

This must have been a pretty funny site though. 80 or so people walking out of a library totally armed to the teeth with knives, spatulas, whisks, and all other manners of new chef toys. We went back to our dorms to drop off our new tools and then went back to Banquet for dinner. I don't remember what the first course was (oops again), but the main course was a roasted duck breast with pineapple fried rice, snow peas and peppers and duck au jus. Au Jus is basically the juices of the meat used in the dish applied as a sauce to enhance the flavor of the dish, generally beef, but in this case...it was duck. Aaaannddd....I snuck a picture in...shh.... 

Daffy had a bad day....

Dessert was a vanilla bean tapioca with fresh berries with I had with a shot of espresso. Back to the gym tonight! That ends the night. Classes start the next day so not wanting to fail the class before I start, I opted for an early turn in. Miss you guys back home!

Next Entry: Classes Start!