Culinary Arts Degree

 

About the Program

The Culinary Arts program at Wallace State provides the ingredients needed to build an exciting career in restaurants, food service, and the greater hospitality industry.  

Chefs, cooks, and food preparation workers prepare, season, and cook a wide range of foods in a variety of restaurants and other food services establishments. Chefs and cooks create recipes and prepare meals, while food preparation workers peel and cut vegetables, trim meat, prepare poultry, and perform other duties such as keeping work areas clean and monitoring temperatures of ovens and stovetops.

Chefs may coordinate the work of the kitchen staff, direct the preparation of meals, determine serving sizes, plan menus, order food supplies, and oversee kitchen operations to ensure uniform quality and presentation of meals.

In addition to restaurants and cafeterias, grocery and specialty food stores employ chefs, cooks, and food preparation workers to develop recipes and prepare meals for customers to carry out.

Some chefs and cooks go into business as caterers or personal chefs or they open their own restaurant. Others become instructors in culinary training programs.

The culinary arts course of study offers organized, specialized learning experiences which include theory, laboratory, and shop experience as they relate to nutrition, planning, selection, purchasing, preserving, preparing, and serving food and food products. Included in this program are the study of a variety of foods and their nutritional values, and instruction in food processing, quantity cooking, storing equipment, sanitation in food handling, and management. Instruction will emphasize nutrition and quantity food-service activities in commercial food-service establishments.

At Wallace State, practical experience compliments theoretical learning in Culinary Arts Café, where students learn not only how to create menus and prepare meals in the back of the house, but also how to serve customers in the front of the house. 

The Wallace State Culinary Arts program serves lunch most Wednesdays from 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. at the School of Nursing and Center for Science Building, located at the north end of campus. All meals are $5 each, including a choice of tea or water. Bottled drinks are $1. Tax is included. The menu features gourmet as well as lighter fare, and rotates approximately monthly. 

Career Outlook

Employment of chefs and head cooks is projected to grow 6 percent from 2019 to 2029, faster than the average for all occupations. Most job opportunities for chefs and head cooks are expected to be in food services, including restaurants. Job opportunities will result from growth and from the need to replace workers who leave the occupation. The median annual wage for chefs and head cooks was $51,530 in May 2019, with the highest 10 percent earning more than $86,990 (Source: U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics).

WSCC Culinary Arts Program currently has a 100% job placement rate and a 31% Graduation Rate. Our 2020 ACF certification rate was 0%. COVID 19 played a significant role in this result.  We anticipate an increase in certifications going forward.

Culinary Arts Program Statistics