I am a cosmetologist.
I attended beauty school.
I had no idea what I was getting into.
Let me start off by saying, everything you hear about beauty school is false. It's not a place full of ditzy young women who haven't a clue about life, you do not spend all day playing in makeup and experimenting with glitter, it's not a place filled with highschool drop outs, and it's not a place you go because its a easy career. That being said, let me tell you all about my personal experiance.
I enrolled in cosmetology school on a whim. I was out one day and I was bored, I happened to be in the same shopping center that my local beauty school was in. I went in, applied, got accepted, and set up my start date. My first week at school was a nightmare, I couldn't figure out how to roll hair, I hadn't a clue what "45 degree angle" meant, what was all this talk of "pediculosis capitis", and where exactly was the occipital bone located at? Theory class was not easy, actually, it was hard. Not only was I going to have to learn anatomy, physics, electricity, and chemistry I had to remember the proper terms to use. They had tests scheduled three times a week, hours of practical work I had to do, and the dreaded practice State Board test I had to take each month. It took about a week and a half to learn this was not what I had been told school would be like.
The longer I was at the school, the more backwards it was. People that would ride the time clock to graduate in 6 months instead of 24, students would complain when asked to do a client, and if you were rich you got away with whatever you wanted to do. Now keep in mind, not everyone at the school was like this but the majority of people were. Everyone took beauty school as a joke, but it was serious to me I mean, it was going to be my future career and lively hood.
Long story short, I worked my butt off , studied hard, stayed 12 hour days and I graduated. Then came State Board time, I was nervous....VERY nervous. Let me tell you, what you learn during school you only apply maybe 10 % of that at state board. All you have to know to pass stateboard (and any master cosmetoligst will tell you this) is sanitation rules. They didn't care about my haircut, the didn't care my sculptered nail looked like a bird beak, they didn't care about how big my roller sections were, they cared about how many times I sanitized my hands and if I changed my comb after each "client". The theory section of the test was common sense questions, I passed it all.
This was the moment I understood that beauty school teaches you the basics...the very, most simple basics of cosmetology. Beauty school isn't easy, you actually have to work at it to be good.
If I could go back to my first day at school and tell myself one thing, it would be this: "Pay attention to your instructors and how they do hair on the clinic floor, ask questions this is how you'll learn the most." Beauty school teaches you what you need to get by (and a lot of semi useless information about electricity.) but experiance teaches you everything. Take school seriously even if your fellow classmates take it as a joke and learn to take positive critic. Finally, never let someone tell you that you can't do it or that beauty school is for "dummies" do what makes you happy and do it with all you have. Enjoy the ride, the beauty industry is one of the most enjoyable ones you can get into!
Hugs && Glitz,
Brit
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