Culinary Arts Schools

Degree Overview: Culinary Arts

A career in the culinary arts field requires talent, but also knowledge of the kitchen. After all, it can be tough to whip up an excellent dish without some understanding of how to put it all together: what spices will lend the best flavor? What degree of heat produces the perfect sear? What cooking method will preserve the dish's best texture? The "banquet" of courses that make up various online programs for culinary arts can help students to develop necessary skills for success in their careers.

Online Culinary Arts Courses

Many educational programs in the culinary arts are based at the undergraduate level. Students can usually find diplomas, certificates, associate degrees and bachelor's degree programs with ease. Four-year programs are the most likely to be available online, often as part of a completion program. The following are examples of courses that are commonly included across these many different culinary arts programs.

• Culinary Fundamentals: Various culinary theories and techniques will likely be explored, and students could become engaged in tasting, soup preparation, timing, development of knife skills and more. Students also may learn about protein, starches and vegetable preparation.
• Nutrition: This is a particularly important component of a culinary arts education, helping students to develop knowledge about nutritional principles, food labeling and nutritional analysis of recipes. Students may be challenged with assignments such as creating a meal or menu based on nutritional concepts in a course like this.
• Culinary math: Believe it or not, there is plenty of math that has to be done in the kitchen. Students would be well served to take this class, where the curriculum may cover units of measurement and conversions, as well as recipe scaling, yield tests and ratios. Analyzing costs and developing projections could also be part of a culinary math class.
• Food Service and Hospitality Strategic Marketing: A class like this is more likely to be part of a two- or four-year program, such as online bachelors degree programs in culinary arts, rather than a certificate program. Typically, it introduces concepts such as budgeting, marketing research and marketing plans. Students may be asked to do case studies and to explore current issues in culinary and restaurant marketing.

Career-Related Skills to Develop

Online programs for culinary arts can help students to develop skills important to a career, even if you'll likely be practicing these skills in your home kitchen rather than a school classroom! Examples of relevant skill sets are listed below.

• Taste and smell: It goes without saying that taste and smell are important in the kitchen. Food must not only be flavored well, but emit an aroma that makes a dish desirable to eat. It is very possible to become an outstanding chef without these senses, but taste and smell provide important evidence for the progress and quality of a dish that most chefs make great use of. People may already possess these skills, but they may be able to develop them further in a culinary arts program as they learn more about different styles and sciences of cooking.
• Dexterity: No one wants to be sampling their chef's fingertip in their soup! Being able to handle the repetitive motions of cooking, both simple and complex, with dexterity and care is vital. Natural dexterity is a blessing, but maneuvers such as chopping, whisking and blending can all be developed through culinary arts programs with practice and patience.
• Time management: It can only take a matter of seconds for a dish to become overcooked or even to catch fire, and when you're trying to handle multiple meal courses at the same time, it's very easy to lose track of those crucial seconds by mistake. Culinary arts experts must be able to plan out how much time they will need to prepare their ingredients, put them together and bring them all out as one comprehensive meal for their consumers.
• Social awareness: Anyone who's worked with food before probably knows it does not take much for the pressure to rise in the kitchen, particularly with so many people working at so many different tasks: manning the grill, putting together salads, handling side dishes, washing the silverware. Social awareness of the personalities and people at work in the kitchen — and out front — can help things to stay calm instead of becoming piping hot.

Culinary Arts Career Outlook

Once a chef's education is complete, it is time to get into the kitchen, but exactly what kitchen that is and who they work for is where the excitement begins. The possibilities are diverse when talent, drive and ambition are at hand. In this section, two related but different careers in the culinary arts field are described.