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Career Colleges    » Virginia    » Culinary and Hospitality

Virginia Culinary and Hospitality Degrees

Culinary and Hospitality Degrees: Virginia Career Colleges

Looking for accredited career colleges, technical schools, and universities in Virginia offering Culinary and Hospitality degrees.

Culinary training programs provide students with skills and knowledge needed for careers as chefs, cooks, food prep, and catering managers.

Many Virginia colleges and universities are centrally located and within a two to three hour drive of other key towns or neighboring states. If you like to travel or have friends in school in North Carolina or Washington, DC, you can reach them easily from two main interstates that run through Virginia.

Career Colleges: Virginia Culinary and Hospitality Programs

Edible art: Creating a culinary career

What do the world's most well-known chefs, line cooks, catering managers, pastry chefs and prep cooks have in common? Most of them have formal education in the culinary arts. You won't become Emeril Lagasse overnight, but even world-famous chefs traditionally start in culinary school, learning both the trade and business of creating delicious food.

Private and public career schools and chef schools can give graduates the basis they need for entry-level positions. Associate degrees and bachelor's degrees in culinary management are also available. For those with significant work experience in the field already, certificates in food and beverage management can be a career-booster.

Eating and dining: attending culinary school at career and chef schools

A sincere interest in food--combined with a passion for making it taste and look good--are the qualities it takes to succeed in the competitive and challenging world of restaurants. The work can be physically demanding, and the hours can be long and may include weekends.

Culinary arts programs typically offer certificates and degrees in culinary arts or baking and pastry arts. Students begin by learning professional terminology, as well as the processes and procedures used in kitchens, including sanitation laws. Later they move to such hands-on classes as:

• preparing sauces
• boning meat
• basic baking
• curing
• smoking
• plating
• slicing and dicing

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, chefs earned a mean annual wage of $44,780 as of April 2011, while cooks in private households earned $31,110 and food preparation workers earned $20,660. On the management side, food service managers earned $52,220, according to the BLS.

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