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Do you love food, but aren’t sure how to turn
that into a career? Here is a whole list of job possibilities
in the culinary arts, and information about how to find a
culinary arts program to help you achieve your goals.
Students graduating from culinary arts programs are in luck:
the U.S. Department of Labor reports that “Job opportunities
for chefs, cooks, and food preparation workers are expected
to be plentiful because of the continued growth and expansion
of food service outlets.” No matter what the economic
forecast, people still have to eat.
While jobs in the food industry are expected to see an eleven
percent growth between 2006 and 2016 (which translates to
about 351,000 new jobs), the best and highest paying culinary
arts careers will remain highly competitive, and most employers
prefer to hire folks with training. That’s where a career
school can make all the difference in achieving your dream
job.
While working in or owning a restaurant might be your end
goal, those are just two of the many possible careers you
could have in the culinary arts. Here are some of the jobs
a culinary arts degree from a career school could land you.
Chef or Cook
These are the folks who make all the food in a restaurant
or bar. A chef is considered above a cook in the kitchen hierarchy,
and the fancier the restaurant, the more chef classifications
there are. For example, a garde manger chef prepares cold
food, a frutier chef fries food, and an entrementier chef
cooks vegetables. If you find out in your training that you
love to sauté but hate to broil, it’s possible
to specialize as you climb the career ladder.
Food Preparation
One of the most common entry-level culinary arts positions
is in food preparation. Food preparation means that you will
be doing all the chopping and pan fetching. Basically, you
would be performing all of the kitchen tasks leading up to
actually cooking the food.
Institutional Chef
A career in culinary arts often means that you will be cooking
somewhere outside a restaurant setting. About fifteen percent
of culinary workers are employed in hospitals, nursing homes,
schools, and other large institutions.
Kitchen Manager
A kitchen manager does exactly that: manages a kitchen. Career
school training in culinary arts means that not only will
you learn to cook, but you’ll also learn how to make
purchase orders, plan budgets, and run a kitchen. If you discover
your organizational skills are top-notch, this might be the
career path for you.
Personal Chef
Celebrities, executives, and people with money often hire
personal chefs to plan menus and prepare food for a private
household. Having a personal chef is also a growing trend
among people who need to watch their weight or have other
specific dietary needs.
Sommelier
A sommelier is the person in a restaurant who specializes
in all aspects of wine. Sommeliers are responsible for pairing
complementary wine with entrees and training wait staff how
to recommend wine to customers. In addition, a sommelier does
all of the wine purchasing and storage for a restaurant.
Event Coordinator
If you’re interested in all aspects of the hospitality
industry, you might consider a career as an event coordinator.
One of the main responsibilities of an event coordinator is
to work with the caterer to develop a menu for an event, whether
it is a debutante ball or a book release party.
Pastry Chef
Most career culinary schools offer programs in baking and
pastries. If you dream of working as a baker or a dessert
chef in a restaurant, or if you aspire to create the perfect
triple berry pie, this might be the career choice for you.
Confectionary
Confectionaries are one of the best kept secrets in the field
of culinary arts. Confectionaries make candy, which has proven
to be one of the few recession-proof industries according
to the Associated Press.
Consultant or Design Specialist
Consultants are hired by new restaurant owners to help develop
menus, design the dining room, and come up with kitchen protocols
for staff. As a consultant or design specialist, you may also
be hired to help renovate failing restaurants or help long-time
owners make improvements.
Teacher
Because there will always be jobs in culinary arts, culinary
schools will always need teachers. If you find that you are
great at training others or you communicate well in a kitchen
environment, you might have a career teaching the next generation
of culinary arts workers.
Food Stylist
If you’ve ever flipped through a menu or a food magazine
and thought, “Wow, that food looks amazing,” that’s
thanks to a food stylist. Food stylists are hired (usually
by publications) to make food look good on the plate for the
photographer.
Research Chef
Large corporate restaurant chains and grocery stores have
development kitchens, in which research chefs are responsible
for coming up with new products and testing flavor combinations.
Magazines also have test kitchens to recreate recipes before
publication. If you want to be the person who comes up with
the next Subway sub or you’d like to test drive recipes
for Oprah, this might be the career for you.
Entrepreneur
After training, you might decide you’re prepared to
strike out on your own as a restaurant owner, bakery owner,
or caterer. Knowing all aspects of the culinary industry is
crucial for an entrepreneur to be successful, but with the
right career school, you might just have all the tools you
need to make it as a business owner.
How to Get Started
Choosing a career school for culinary arts training can be
intimidating. The good news is, no matter where you live,
you can probably find an accredited career school near you.
At JustColleges, you can search by location to find a culinary
program close to home. Or you can search by program to see
all of the exciting places your career goals could take you.
Here is a small list of some of the programs that are available
at various career schools across the country:
Art Institute schools are located in many major US cities,
from Nashville to Los Angeles, Chicago to Phoenix. The Art
Institutes offer programs in culinary arts, culinary management,
and hotel and restaurant management. If you aspire to become
a kitchen manager or an entrepreneur, the Art Institutes’
commitment to management programs might be the right fit for
you.
If you dream of becoming an executive chef, a sommelier,
or a food critic on par with Julia Child, you might want to
look into a Le Cordon Bleu program. The Le Cordon Bleu method
of cooking comes from a famous Paris culinary school and has
been around since 1895. Many contemporary methods of food
preparation come from this classical French style. The California
Culinary Academy in San Francisco, The Le Cordon Bleu College
of Culinary Arts in Minneapolis/St. Paul, and McIntosh College
in Dover, New Hampshire all offer accredited Le Cordon Blue
culinary arts programs.
If desserts or candy-making are more your style, you probably
want to attend a career school with a baking program. The
Pennsylvania Culinary Institute in Pittsburgh offers a patisserie
and baking program, as does Scottsdale Culinary Academy and
Texas Culinary Academy in Austin.
All of these programs will give you hands on training in
classrooms that are also industry-standard kitchens. Your
instructors will be chefs and other industry professionals.
If you want the kind of culinary experience and training that
today’s employers desire, a career school will certainly
set you on the right path to success.
View
a complete list of Colleges that offer programs in Culinary
Arts.
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