An education at a culinary school provides plenty of exciting career options. Your cooking skills will be stretched and tested in new ways, but culinary school involves much more than that. You will also learn how to organize a kitchen, form a cooking team in a business, keep an eye on the catering supplies, and more. Skilled chefs can find work anywhere in the world, so the culinary arts offer location flexibility that other jobs simply can't offer. Below are just a few career possibilities for culinary-school graduates.
Pastry Chef
If you love desserts, you should consider becoming a pastry chef. You might be able to find these positions without formal culinary school credentials, but a degree will go a long way. You will also have more knowledge about desserts than you could discover on your own. Pastry chefs make a decent salary; the national average salary for pastry chefs ranges between $32,000 and $35,000 per year. Your salary will depend on your qualifications, location, and experience. You may want to start with an internship or apprenticeship to gain hands-on experience.
Private Chef
Culinary schools can also prepare people for careers as private chefs. If you don't like the idea of preparing food for an entire restaurant, you could offer your skills and expertise to families. Families with higher-than-average incomes may hire you to cook their meals each day. People with dietary restrictions often benefit from the knowledge and personal care of private chefs. You should acquire a bachelor's degree in some sort of culinary arts program to get started as a private chef. Salaries average between $45,000 and $50,000 per year depending on location, experience, and how much individual families are willing to pay.
Research Chef
The job of the research chef may be the most interesting career on this list. These culinary professionals work with marketing experts to create new recipes for large brands. The scrumptious snacks you love taste the way they do because of the work of research chefs. You may need some knowledge of chemistry and nutrition to work in this field, but a culinary arts degree should suffice for beginning positions. Salaries range between $65,000 and $70,000 per year depending on location, experience, and qualifications.
