Culinary Degrees Are More Versatile Than You May Think

Until recently many people looked on the study of the culinary arts more as a personal indulgence than as a career path.  Trained chefs were thought to be a necessity for top of the line restaurants and not much else.  That was an extreme view, and today has very little relevance to the food service industry.

• Culinary degrees are a necessity for people who want to run kitchens in high end restaurants or hotels.  But they are also important for jobs in institutional kitchens, in family restaurants, and in all sorts of hospitality facilities such as resorts and casinos.  A culinary degree can get you an interview in a wide assortment of businesses and facilities that provide food service.
• In fine dining establishments, newly minted culinary graduates are taken in as line cooks, sous chefs or bakery chefs.  Graduates with a two year or four year education at a culinary academy qualify for these positions, but it is an established and formal process working one's way up to chef status.  Both education and experience count for positions as head chef in a fine dining establishment.
• Cooks and chefs in good restaurants that aren't quite as pricey are often hired on the strength of a resume with a good culinary education and a little experience.  These jobs require running a kitchen crew and keeping the product flow in the kitchen up to the same pace as the turnover in the dining room.
• Cooks in institutional facilities often work with dieticians in putting menus together.  Hospitals, extended care facilities and cafeterias in office buildings require chefs who can assemble a good menu and supervise the crew that handles preparations each day for serving large numbers of people with a limited menu of items.
• Executive chefs are usually individuals who have formal culinary training and who are responsible for both the food preparation in a find dining facility and the ordering of food, hiring and separation of staff and managing the budget.  Executive chefs often leave the restaurant business to handle catering departments in high-end hotels or resorts.  They will often also manage restaurants within these facilities.

Many culinary graduates cannot resist the lure of opening their own restaurants and leave the comfort of an executive chef position to operate a small restaurant.  Chefs become part of the draw at many such restaurants, and some are adept at marketing themselves.  Wolfgang Puck has restaurants on two coasts, television appearances, a line of prepared frozen dishes and dozens of interviews every year.  But we're not sure when he last turned on a burner under a stainless steel hood.