From working as a full-time, self-employed content creator to returning to Cornell as a full-time student with an 8 a.m. chemistry lecture, Jeremy Scheck ‘22 faces a new reality.
While studying Spanish and Italian during his undergraduate studies at Cornell, Scheck built a platform on his viral recipes and food content on social media, amassing over 2.3 million followers across his profiles. He also authored a cookbook called Cooking Smarter: Friendly Recipes with a Side of Science, which has sold over 15,000 copies. The book features simple recipes with the chemistry behind the interacting ingredients.
Four years later, Scheck is returning to Cornell with a purpose: receiving a master’s degree in food science.
“I felt like I had unfinished business with food science because it remained a huge interest of mine,” Scheck told The Sun. “I wanted to not just be a food science enthusiast, but also a food scientist.”
Early Interests
Food has always interested Scheck. After being hired at a local bakery in high school, Scheck was hooked.
He started “After School Bakery,” a food blog that emphasized his passion for food science. Dating back to 2016, Scheck’s blog posts discussed topics such as why the comparison between flour of “11.7% protein content” flour with “12.7% protein content” can make “a drastic difference.”
As Scheck’s pursuit of food science and blogging solidified, so did his ambitions for where those interests could take him. For him, that destination was Cornell.
“Cornell was the first school I ever visited,” Scheck said. “When I ended up seriously looking for colleges, it was like no other school stacked up to it.”
The robust food science and agricultural programs at Cornell were a driving factor for Scheck, he said. He applied early decision and began his undergraduate degree pursuing a food science major the next year.
Undergraduate Career Takeoff
Scheck’s food blogging remained a constant throughout his academic career. Upon arrival, “After School Bakery” transformed into “Collegetown Kitchen,” a blog that “share[s] accessible recipes for college students” and “include[s] diverse perspectives from college students and wise cooks,” according to the site.
What did change, however, were Scheck’s educational pursuits.
After spending a summer as an au pair, providing childcare for a host family in Spain, he switched from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences to the College of Arts and Sciences to pursue a double major in Spanish and Italian while continuing to take courses in food science.
“With the food science program, it was [not] going to be until my junior year that I had truly enough space to take an elective that was completely out of the scope of food science,” Scheck said. “I just wanted to explore a little bit more. It was a tough decision, but I'm glad I made it.”
Despite the shift in his academics, Scheck continued to find inspiration for his content creation in the classes he took throughout his time at Cornell.
“I didn't take marketing or business classes,” Scheck explained. “But I think what helped me was that I was learning interesting information in my food classes, whether it was Italian food culture in the romance studies department, or hands-on horticulture, or the histories of food insecurity.”
He emphasized that his experiences in interdisciplinary food classes informed his content.
Using his education and experience with content-creating, Scheck shifted from blogging to short-form videos on TikTok as the pandemic hit.
What started as a leap of faith became the launchpad for his social media success. His videos quickly gained traction throughout the pandemic, with one video from 2020 gaining 12 million views.
Scheck’s success allowed him to pursue content creation full-time, making use of “engaging topics that were informed by [the] substantive” learning Cornell provided, he said.
The Return
After graduating from Cornell, Scheck took on many business ventures. From being a self-sustained content creator, author and even living abroad while creating travel and tasting itineraries for tourists, he gained experience that has shaped his pursuit of food science today.
As a current student in the Master of Food Science program, Scheck is undergoing a “one-year, STEM-designated, course-based master's degree” that “emphasizes professional development and intellectual investigation in the areas of agriculture, life sciences and global development,” per the program’s site. At its conclusion, he will complete a capstone project in his chosen field of study.
“I would love to work possibly in product development,” Scheck said. “Not necessarily the nitty gritty, but I want to understand what's going on in a lab so that I can then communicate it and figure out how to turn that into a consumer-facing message.”
As an undergraduate, pursuing a degree was an expected part of his education, he said. This time, earning his master’s is a choice driven by his own “volition.”
Scheck is excited to leave the program with deeper expertise in an interest that has remained a constant throughout most of his life. From “Afterschool Bakery” to “Collegetown Kitchen” and, now, @ScheckEats, Scheck’s many experiences have contributed to a greater gratitude and a motivation to return to his Ithaca origins.
“I think that you might just have a deeper appreciation for what you're doing if you wait a little bit and get some alternate experience,” Scheck said. “It gives you a lot more perspective when you've had a little bit of a change.”
Rafaela Gandolfo Bustamante is a member of the Class of 2028 in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. She is a senior writer for the news department and can be reached at rgandolfobustamante@cornellsun.com.
