Focus on Guidance Counselors: Preparing Students for Hospitality and Culinary Arts Careers

What's New, Jan/Feb 2004 by Scheuerman, Craig, Alba, Christina, Muller, Christopher, Martin, Aubrey, Et al

There is much interest and excitement today in the assortment of career paths in the culinary and hospitality profession. How can guidance counselors prepare high school students for these careers? What's New Magazine editors asked experts at culinary and hospitality schools around the country for their thoughts and recommendations.

Chef Craig Scheuerman

Chef Instructor

School of Culinary Arts and Hospitality

Stratford University

Falls Church, VA

Students can definitely find high paying jobs in culinary and hospitality that have 9-5 working hours. A young person interested in this profession needs to be a creative, team-oriented individual. It is helpful for guidance counselors to meet or speak with local chef organizations, state restaurant associations or the national restaurant association.

You can find these groups from The National Restaurant Association (www.restaurant.org) or American Culinary Federation's local chapter finder (www.acfchefs.org/chapter/chapmap.html). A site that lists top culinary programs in the country is: www.culinaryschools.com.

Christopher Muller

Associate Professor

Rosen School of Hospitality Management

University of Central Florida

Orlando, FL

There are thousands of management jobs in the corporate/chain restaurant business with annual salaries exceeding $100,000. The skills required to manage a restaurant include human resource management, finance, marketing, operations and production planning, information technology and just plain old charisma. There are over 800,000 restaurants and 100,000 hotels in the United States, and all of them required skilled management.

Counselors need to know which universities are "nationally" well known, which are "regional," and which are best for "local" markets. With hundreds of culinary programs, it would be helpful for counselors to know how a student's skills are best matched to these offerings.

Christina Alba

Community Relations Representative

California Culinary Academy

San Francisco, CA

Unlike high-tech and other industries that are sensitive to economic recessions, culinary and hospitality careers are much more stable. If students are interested in traveling abroad or working in nontraditional settings, there are huge opportunities to find employment. Culinary and hospitality careers not only include restaurant and hotel management, but can also extend to food styling, food critiquing, event planning, property management and many marketing jobs.

It would be helpful if guidance counselors could tell students that regardless of their major in college, there is a good chance of finding employment in the hospitality field upon graduation. They can tell students that accounting and finance undergraduates can work as controllers for major hotel chains. Likewise, business and marketing students can be employed as sales managers for famous food labels.

Aubrey Martin

Senior Admissions Representative

Western Culinary Institute

Portland, OR

Encourage students to talk to local chefs and to research the profession online. Guidance counselors need to be informed about the difference between hospitality and culinary. Students who graduate from a Hospitality and Restaurant Management program are working mostly in the front of the house. These students are given the opportunity to learn all aspects of the hospitality industry - the cooking, the management and bartending. They must like to deal with people and be very customer oriented.

Culinary, on the other hand, is more geared for people whose hearts are in the kitchen. Students graduating from these programs will not be chefs or restaurant managers upon graduation from any culinary school. They must work their way up. Students work their way up much more quickly if they have a degree.

Enid Maggiore

Director of Administrative Services

Indiana University of Pennsylvania

Academy of Culinary Arts

Punxsutawney, PA

Guidance counselors need to emphasize the importance of students getting basic math, reading and computer skills. Potential culinary students should also have some foreign language classes to prepare them for the increasing diversity in the kitchen. Students with strong leadership skills have outstanding opportunities in the field and will move quickly to supervisory and management positions.

Counselors need to understand the differences between culinary and hospitality management programs and what the outcomes are for the students who enter these programs. Counselors might want to ask questions about placement and career outcomes for graduates of these programs when they are calling schools to follow up on applications.

Chef Richard Tankersley

Culinary Arts Instructor

Ozarka College

Melbourne, AR

If a student works well both in a team and independently, that student may be a culinary candidate. There are many surprising fields that relate to culinary and hospitality such as photography, nutrition, English and communication, accounting, even psychology and human relations. Tourists today are more demanding of great food, great service, great accommodations and great attractions. The culinary and hospitality industries are there to meet this demand.