Valerie Valcourt has loved baking since she was young. While in high school, she took a home economics class where they baked a lot.

“One time, my teacher said, ‘Val, you’re running this for the day,’ and I was in charge of everything. That’s when I knew I’d love to go to pastry school,” she recounted to Business Insider Africa.

But when she graduated from high school in 2007, her parents told her to abandon her baking dreams. “You’re not going to pastry school. You don’t need to be in the kitchen,” they told her.

Valcourt ended up working at Big Tech companies for almost five years, but she realized that she wasn’t happy. She still had dreams of going to pastry school.

“I was living in Seattle and making over $100,000 with equity and bonuses as an administrative business partner at Google,” she said. “I lucked out finding good apartments in cool neighborhoods, and financially, I was OK, but I felt unfulfilled. I was in environments where it was very dog-eat-dog. I’d look around the room and think, ‘What am I doing here?”‘

Valcourt said she kept asking herself why she wasn’t pursuing a career that would bring her joy. At the time, she sometimes baked for her friends and realized that she enjoyed the process. Hence, she decided to apply to a pastry school in Paris, which accepted her. The only issue was that the school’s fees were high, and Valcourt didn’t have the funds.

“I also wasn’t mentally prepared. I felt stuck in this frozen state, unable to make the moves I needed to. So I left Big Tech and moved to New York for a year. I became an executive assistant at a meditation company, and it was one of the most stressful jobs I’ve ever had. It really affirmed my decision to go to pastry school,” she narrated.

Valcourt chose to go to school in France because doing so in the U.S. might require her to take on a lot of loans, she said. Valcourt soon found an accelerated three-month program called Gastronomicon in Agde, a small beach village in the south of France. It provided pastry lessons, French lessons, a four-month internship at a Michelin-level restaurant, and housing for both the school and internship, Valcourt explained.

“Everything was $10,000. Any other school I looked at lacked at least one of those things and still had a higher price tag,” she said.

Her parents, siblings and friends gave her all the support she needed to follow her dreams, and she found this really helpful considering she had doubts about starting all over. “I was 33 at the time. I thought, ‘OK, I can do this and see where this takes me. I don’t know what’s going to happen after school, but I’m going to do my best.’”

Then came the culture shock when she began the classes. Valcourt had three hours of French class and three hours of pastry every Monday through Friday.

“My school was scheduled so that each week was a theme, like bread, chocolate, plated desserts, or entremets. I had no idea there were so many desserts in France, so everything was completely brand-new from the meringues to the pte choux.”

Valcourt also didn’t speak much French before going to pastry school. “I remember going to the grocery store, just pointing at things, panicking, and apologizing profusely. That forced me to get serious and learn as much as I could before my internship,” she said.

Truly, she took her studies seriously, so much so that even when she struggled with the same imposter syndrome she had while working in tech, she found those moments of joy when she would pull a cake out of the oven, and it came out so well.

“My whole world exploded in the best way possible because it gave me the gift of having to push myself so much in such a short amount of time,” she said.

“I found joy every day, even in the French homework. I started out not knowing much French, and then I could actually speak to people in restaurants and navigate around the country. I didn’t know what a meringue was, and now I can make a lemon meringue pie.”

Valcourt said she pulled herself out of that dark place she had been in while working in Big Tech. “My spirits lifted being around people who loved talking about food and nerding out on pastry. We would gather for potlucks and eat all the desserts we could find at local patisseries. It was such a unique bonding experience. I was trusting myself and letting myself be as open as I could be.”

She doesn’t miss Big Tech, and she is grateful that chapter of her life has closed, she stressed. “I love working with my hands and not staring at a computer screen for eight hours a day.”

When she was done with pastry school, she intended to move to Paris, but then Disney Cruise Line called, and she gladly accepted to join them. Now, she has worked on multiple Disney cruise ships.

“I’ve worked on the Disney Treasure and Disney Wish ships as a demi chef de partie. I’m returning to the Treasure in March.”

Her goal is to open up her own patisserie in the Connecticut area so she can share with the people there what she had learned. “I would love to share my favorite desserts, play with the different ingredients I’ve learned about in France, and bring new things to the table we haven’t seen in the States.”

Valcourt is currently encouraging people not to give up on their dreams. “Sometimes, when you’re in your 30s or older, you’re scared to start over. But the truth is, you’re not stuck. Now I get to travel the world and pour energy into my passion. Life doesn’t have to stop just because you get older. If anything, it’s beginning to open up if you just allow it,” she said.