Is there any EPCC students or pastry bakers here? I plan to move here to my mom's house from Las Cruces after graduating, but I need advice and just any info about opening a pastry shop and what I need to learn and do as someone who wants to bake for a living.

To add in more information, I'm a senior graduating next year in May and I'm questioning on what I need to do and what else I need to learn. I plan to go to community college and go through a culinary art's pastry program for 4 years. I was planning to do two years originally and then two years of business, however, my mom's boyfriend told me I didn't need to go through two years of business to open up a pastry shop and now I'm just overall stressed and confused😬 I was also wondering if I should stay 2 years in community college and then transfer to university for another 2 years, but I also don't wanna put my family into more debt with that transfer and I'm not sure if a associate's degree is all I need to open a pastry shop

I'm just overall confused with these college stuff and it's stressing me out how many times my family have been asking me about college🥲 I'm also wondering if just being in the culinary arts pastry program will teach me about how and what I need to open a pastry shop. if a bit more details are needed, I plan to move in with my mom from Las Cruces and go to EPCC, but I don't plan on opening a bakery here. I'm hoping to later on save enough money to move to a other country, preferably somewhere in Iceland and then open a bakery there.

Other things I wanna ask is how do I transfer my dual credits to EPCC? I have dual credits from a pro-baking classband wonder how the process is that for, please and thank you!