Christopher Parise '11
Degree: BPS
Major: Culinary Arts Management
Biography:
Right Place at the Right Time
Were it not for a strict company policy, this spotlight might be appearing on the website of MIT, not the CIA. But looking back, Christopher Parise couldn’t be happier that things turned out the way they did in his sophomore year at Nashua High School in New Hampshire.
“I was in a job shadow program and wanted to go to my dad’s engineering company, but they wouldn’t allow it,” Chris recalls. “So instead I went to a local Lebanese restaurant on a Saturday night, and they were busy. The guy asked if I could grill, I did it, and he ended up hiring me for weekends.”
That experience just further encouraged what was already a growing interest for Chris. “I did much of the cooking during the week for my family through middle school because both my parents worked and my older brother came home later than me,” he says. “I cooked what I learned from my parents, and good food was very important to them.”
After doing an independent study in his high school’s culinary department as a senior, Chris was ready to consider the culinary arts as a career. It didn’t take him long to find the right place to start. “The CIA was the only school I applied for after checking out the other colleges,” he says. “They didn’t have sports, and when I visited this campus, it was very clean and in a great location…more like home.”
And being a part of the CIA soccer family has made it even more like home, especially for someone like Chris who’d been playing the sport since he was six years old. “During freshman year, it was a great way to make friends, seeing them around campus,” he explains. “You get a good idea of what the campus is like, a more personal view of the school.”
Of course, leave it to college friends to really get personal, especially when you’re a freshman. “When I first joined the soccer team, I’m kind of a big guy and they didn’t have shorts that fit,” Chris recalls with a laugh. “So they took a picture of me and made a poster—’The Tightest Shorts You’ll Ever See’—which still hangs on my wall to this day. It was hysterical. Those are the kinds of things that have made it a lot more enjoyable for me.”
The same can be said for his coach, Michael Murphy. “Murph is always available to sit down and talk if you need help,” he says. “While he expects you to be able to juggle school and soccer, he’s very flexible about scheduling. He just expects that, while you’re there, you show up conditioned and work as hard as you can so you’re at your best right from the start.”
Being on the soccer team has helped Chris be at his best both on and off the field at the CIA. “Classes can be challenging, and soccer helps keep me focused,” he says. “It makes my schedule very regimented, which I respond well to. Even after the season, I keep to that regimen.”
That discipline is key to being a student-athlete, according to Chris. “If you want to play sports, be ready to work really hard. But,” he says—perhaps thinking of that poster hanging on his wall—”be ready to have a good time too.”
