Think about it: how many times has someone scoffed at you for going to Cosmetology School? Remarks like “Oh, 13 months? That’s nothing,” and “Man, I wish I had taken the easy route and gone to beauty school,” cast a somewhat deceiving shadow on our education. Maybe you believed it too; that going into a Cosmetology program was going to be a less ambitious route, or something to do in the meantime. Well, the facts don’t lie kids: this educational decision we’ve made is much, MUCH, more difficult.
1. Credit Hours Say Aveda was set up like your typical four year college or university. To earn a Bachelor’s Degree, you would typically need between 124-128 credit hours. At Aveda U, by the time we are done, we will have earned roughly the equivalent of 160 credit hours. Holy moly, folks. That’s well on our way to a Masters.
2. Length So now we’ve established we’re working our booties off, but did you take into consideration we’re doing all this in a quarter of the time? Joe College gets four years to weave his straw into gold. We get just over one. It may seem like a short program, but ask your friends how they would manage going straight through with a pittance of a break for over an ENTIRE YEAR. We’ve sacrificed family vacations, weddings, baby showers, dates, and late night talks with the girls, so we can make sure we are doing our craft to the best of our ability. The dedication we have is astronomical.
3. The Rules Joe College goes out until 4 am. Comes home, writes a paper, wakes up for an 11 am class, throws on sweat pants, gets to class a minute late, and gets to leave and go back to bed after an hour. Cos students, stop your laughing. That is what college is like, and something we would kill for. No one is mad when you come in your pj’s, without makeup, half asleep. We wake up HOURS early for an already long day to make sure we look impeccable. Get to school a minute late? Too bad, you lose that day. Too tired? You better chug a diet coke before your guest leaves bald.
4. We Have To Know Everything Have you ever broken it down? All the knowledge we have to have to make it through school? Chemistry, Geometry, Health and Disease Control, Color Theory, Anatomy, Biology, Psychology, Business, Anthropology, Hospitality… The list is never ending. We mix, we analyze, we shape, we listen, we do everything. And we do it all with a smile on our face.
5. Graduating We’ve done it. We’ve graduated. We’re off to work. Oops, wait, no, we have to now go and talk to the state and take a test. Joe College, I know what you’re thinking, I know you had finals and term papers and meetings with professors. We did too. We still had to graduate from school. And when you realize only half of us who started out did, you’ll realize it wasn’t a cake walk. But even after school deems us competent, we have to get the state to say so too. And until that happens, which could take months to get a test date, we can’t work. Don’t get me wrong, every hairstylist should absolutely be licensed by the state. Just recognize the work we’re putting in.
So why do it? Because we love it. And nothing will make us happier. We work our fingers to the bone, but our hands, and dye our nails brown, but our payoff is huge. We go to Aveda, and work harder than you could ever imagine. We go to Aveda, and major in smiles.
Blog post by Aveda Institute Tampa Bay Cosmetology student: Elle Miller
