Julie

First-generation student Julie Resendiz (she/her), a baking and pastry management major, serves foodies a lot of flavor in the form of the tropical guava fruit, “There’s something that I make with puff pastry,” said Resendiz. “It’s a guava and cream cheese pastry, which is a typical Cuban pastry. Whenever I make it, people go crazy, and it brings them together, which is an amazing feeling.” She also enjoys baking the classics, such as flan, a popular Spanish custard dessert.

Turning tasty sweets into profits has been Resendiz’s dream since she ran the halls of Dragon Country as a little girl. “I chose to attend HCC because of my mother’s connection to the school—she worked in the cafeteria for about 15 years,” said Julie Resendiz. “Her experience introduced me to the college, and I appreciated the opportunities it offered.”

Resendiz became a member of Phi Theta Kappa. To pursue her passion for pastries, she received financial support from the Baltimore International College Educational Foundation and the Networking Concepts, Inc. scholarships.

“If it weren’t for the scholarships, I would not have been able to attend HCC,” said Resendiz. “It’s hard to work in my program because each class is eight hours per week, and that’s just baking and pastry. One class is like a full workday.”

She also received assistance from the Travel Center for Hospitality and Culinary Studies Fund, which covers the HCC Passport to Pastries Study Abroad program, where she will study under the tutelage of the world’s best pastry chefs in France. Resendiz will participate in a four-day intensive French baking course at the École Nationale Supérieure de Pâtisserie in Yssingeaux. She will also visit Paris to tour patisseries, boulangeries, chocolatiers, and famous Paris landmarks with her classmates.

“We are always talking about this experience and about recipes,” said Resendiz. “And we talk about what we are going to do when we leave here [HCC] and the jobs we have already landed in the industry or at bakeries.”

Under the HCC Culinary & Hospitality Program, the Baking and Pastry Arts Management - A.A.S. Degree helps students develop baking in a professional environment skills, including food handling, purchasing, cost control, and more. Resendiz’s goal is to open a café and bakery, specializing in traditional French and Latin American pastries. For this future entrepreneur, the gifts from the Howard Community College Educational Foundation’s scholarship benefactors and supporters truly made a difference.

“It was really nice to share my story at the student donor luncheon and meet the donors who supported my educational journey,” said Resendiz. “I just wanted to thank them for allowing me to pursue my passion for baking, and I want to pay it forward in the future.”