Culinary Arts/Chef Training

Types of Degrees Culinary Arts/Chef Training Majors Are Getting

The following table lists how many culinary arts/chef training graduations there were for each degree level during the last year for which data was available.

Education Level	Number of Grads
Associate Degree	3,952
Undergraduate Certificate	3,411
Basic Certificate	2,718
Bachelor’s Degree	205

What Culinary Arts/Chef Training Majors Need to Know

In an O*NET survey, culinary arts/chef training majors were asked to rate what knowledge areas, skills, and abilities were important in their occupations. These answers were weighted on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the most important.

Knowledge Areas for Culinary Arts/Chef Training Majors

This major prepares you for careers in which these knowledge areas are important:

• Food Production - Knowledge of techniques and equipment for planting, growing, and harvesting food products (both plant and animal) for consumption, including storage/handling techniques.
• Customer and Personal Service - Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
• English Language - Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
• Administration and Management - Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, production methods, and coordination of people and resources.
• Production and Processing - Knowledge of raw materials, production processes, quality control, costs, and other techniques for maximizing the effective manufacture and distribution of goods.

Skills for Culinary Arts/Chef Training Majors

When studying culinary arts/chef training, you’ll learn many skills that will help you be successful in a wide range of jobs - even those that do not require a degree in the field. The following is a list of some of the most common skills needed for careers associated with this major:

• Monitoring - Monitoring/Assessing performance of yourself, other individuals, or organizations to make improvements or take corrective action.
• Speaking - Talking to others to convey information effectively.
• Coordination - Adjusting actions in relation to others’ actions.
• Active Listening - Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
• Critical Thinking - Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems.

Abilities for Culinary Arts/Chef Training Majors

A major in culinary arts/chef training will prepare for your careers in which the following abilities are important:

• Problem Sensitivity - The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.
• Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
• Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
• Deductive Reasoning - The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
• Near Vision - The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).

What Can You Do With a Culinary Arts/Chef Training Major?

People with a culinary arts/chef training degree often go into the following careers:

Job Title	Job Growth Rate	Median Salary
Chefs and Head Cooks	9.6%	$48,460
Cooks	9.0%	$28,650
Cooks, Private Household	5.2%	$37,590
Cooks, Restaurant	11.8%	$26,530
First-Line Supervisors of Food Preparation and Serving Workers	9.3%	$32,450

Who Is Getting a Bachelor’s Degree in Culinary Arts/Chef Training?

According to recent stats this major attracts about equal numbers of men and women. Roughly 48% of the graduates are women, and 52% are men.

Racial-Ethnic Diversity

At the countrywide level, the racial-ethnic distribution of culinary arts/chef training majors is as follows:

Race/Ethnicity	Number of Grads
Asian	10
Black or African American	32
Hispanic or Latino	17
White	114
International Students	14
Other Races/Ethnicities	18

Geographic Diversity

Culinary Arts/Chef Training appeals to people across the globe. About 6.8% of those with this major are international students.

Amount of Education Required for Careers Related to Culinary Arts/Chef Training

Some degrees associated with culinary arts/chef training may require an advanced degree, while others may not even require a bachelor’s in the field. Whatever the case may be, pursuing more education usually means that more career options will be available to you.

Find out what the typical degree level is for culinary arts/chef training careers below.

Education Level	Percentage of Workers
Less than a High School Diploma	16.5%
High School Diploma - or the equivalent (for example, GED)	34.2%
Post-Secondary Certificate - awarded for training completed after high school (for example, in agriculture or natural resources, computer services, personal or culinary services, engineering technologies, healthcare, construction trades, mechanic and repair technologies, or precision production)	20.3%
Some College Courses	9.4%
Associate’s Degree (or other 2-year degree)	17.2%
Bachelor’s Degree	2.9%
First Professional Degree - awarded for completion of a program that: requires at least 2 years of college work before entrance into the program, includes a total of at least 6 academic years of work to complete, and provides all remaining academic requirements to begin practice in a profession.	0.9%
Post-Doctoral Training	0.9%

Online Culinary Arts/Chef Training Programs

The following table lists the number of programs by degree level, along with how many schools offered online courses in the field.

Degree Level	Colleges Offering Programs	Colleges Offering Online Classes
Certificate (Less Than 1 Year)	0	0
Certificate (1-2 years)	237	2
Certificate (2-4 Years)	25	0
Associate’s Degree	275	2
Bachelor’s Degree	0	0
Post-Baccalaureate	0	0
Master’s Degree	1	0
Post-Master’s	1	0
Doctor’s Degree (Research)	0	0
Doctor’s Degree (Professional Practice)	0	0
Doctor’s Degree (Other)	0	0

Majors Related to Culinary Arts/Chef Training

You may also be interested in one of the following majors related to culinary arts/chef training.

Major	Number of Grads
Baking & Pastry Arts/Baker/Pastry Chef	5,508
General Cooking & Related Culinary Arts	3,586
Restaurant, Culinary, & Catering Management/Manager	1,291
Food Preparation/Professional Cooking/Kitchen Assistant	804
Other Culinary Arts & Related Services	382
Culinary Science/Culinology	278
Institutional Food Workers	214
Bartending/Bartender	194
Food Service, Waiter/Waitress, & Dining Room Management/Manager	80
Meat Cutting/Meat Cutter	54
Wine Steward/Sommelier	3

References

*The racial-ethnic minorities count is calculated by taking the total number of students and subtracting white students, international students, and students whose race/ethnicity was unknown. This number is then divided by the total number of students at the school to obtain the racial-ethnic minorities percentage.

• College Factual
• College Scorecard
• National Center for Education Statistics
• O*NET Online
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
• Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers First Quarter 2020
• Image Credit: By U.S. Army Europe Images under License

More about our data sources and methodologies.