Food Preparation/Kitchen Assistant

Types of Degrees Food Preparation/Kitchen Assistant Majors Are Getting

The following table lists how many food preparation/professional cooking/kitchen assistant graduations there were in 2020-2021 for each degree level.

Education Level	Number of Grads
Basic Certificate	648
Undergraduate Certificate	136
Associate Degree	17

What Food Preparation/Kitchen Assistant Majors Need to Know

People with careers related to food preparation/professional cooking/kitchen assistant were asked what knowledge areas, skills, and abilities were important for their jobs. They weighted these areas on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the highest.

Knowledge Areas for Food Preparation/Professional Cooking/Kitchen Assistant Majors

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

• 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.
• Food Production - Knowledge of techniques and equipment for planting, growing, and harvesting food products (both plant and animal) for consumption, including storage/handling techniques.
• 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.
• Mathematics - Knowledge of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus, statistics, and their applications.

Skills for Food Preparation/Professional Cooking/Kitchen Assistant Majors

When studying food preparation/professional cooking/kitchen assistant, 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:

• Service Orientation - Actively looking for ways to help people.
• Critical Thinking - Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems.
• 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.
• Judgment and Decision Making - Considering the relative costs and benefits of potential actions to choose the most appropriate one.

Abilities for Food Preparation/Professional Cooking/Kitchen Assistant Majors

Food Preparation/Professional Cooking/Kitchen Assistant majors often go into careers where the following abilities are vital:

• Near Vision - The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
• 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.
• Information Ordering - The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
• Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
• Manual Dexterity - The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.

What Can You Do With a Food Preparation/Kitchen Assistant Major?

Below is a list of occupations associated with food preparation/professional cooking/kitchen assistant:

Job Title	Job Growth Rate	Median Salary
Cooks	9.0%	$28,650
Cooks, Institution and Cafeteria	7.7%	$26,860
Cooks, Private Household	5.2%	$37,590

Who Is Getting an Associate’s Degree in Food Preparation/Kitchen Assistant?

Roughly 47% of the graduates are women, and 53% are men.

Racial-Ethnic Diversity

At the countrywide level, the racial-ethnic distribution of food preparation/professional cooking/kitchen assistant majors is as follows:

Race/Ethnicity	Number of Grads
Asian	0
Black or African American	0
Hispanic or Latino	4
White	12
International Students	0
Other Races/Ethnicities	1

How Much Do Food Preparation/Kitchen Assistant Majors Make?

Salaries According to BLS

Average salaries range from $28,290 to $41,240 (25th to 75th percentile) for careers related to food preparation/professional cooking/kitchen assistant. This range includes all degree levels, so the salary for a person with just a bachelor’s degree may be a little less and the one for a person with an advanced degree may be a little more.

To put that into context, according to BLS data from the first quarter of 2020, the typical high school graduate makes between $30,000 and $57,900 a year (25th through 75th percentile). The average person with a bachelor’s degree (any field) makes between $45,600 and $99,000. Advanced degree holders make the most with salaries between $55,600 and $125,400.

Amount of Education Required for Careers Related to Food Preparation/Kitchen Assistant

Some careers associated with food preparation/professional cooking/kitchen assistant require an advanced degree while some may not even require a bachelor’s. Whatever the case may be, pursuing more education usually means that more career options will be available to you.

How much schooling do you really need to compete in today’s job market? People currently working in careers related to food preparation/professional cooking/kitchen assistant have obtained the following education levels.

Education Level	Percentage of Workers
Less than a High School Diploma	2.9%
High School Diploma - or the equivalent (for example, GED)	58.1%
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)	22.2%
Some College Courses	10.3%
Associate’s Degree (or other 2-year degree)	6.5%
Bachelor’s Degree	4.5%

Online Food Preparation/Kitchen Assistant Programs

In the 2020-2021 academic year, 73 schools offered some type of food preparation/professional cooking/kitchen assistant program. 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)	26	0
Certificate (2-4 Years)	1	0
Associate’s Degree	5	1
Bachelor’s Degree	0	0
Post-Baccalaureate	0	0
Master’s Degree	0	0
Post-Master’s	0	0
Doctor’s Degree (Research)	0	0
Doctor’s Degree (Professional Practice)	0	0
Doctor’s Degree (Other)	0	0

Is a Degree in Food Preparation/Kitchen Assistant Worth It?

The median salary for a food preparation/professional cooking/kitchen assistant grad is $30,360 per year. This is based on the weighted average of the most common careers associated with the major.

Trades Related to Food Preparation/Kitchen Assistant

You may also be interested in one of the following majors related to food preparation/professional cooking/kitchen assistant.

Major	Number of Grads
Culinary Arts/Chef Training	9,052
Baking & Pastry Arts/Baker/Pastry Chef	4,322
General Cooking & Related Culinary Arts	3,156
Restaurant, Culinary, & Catering Management/Manager	1,380
Other Culinary Arts & Related Services	411
Culinary Science/Culinology	196
Bartending/Bartender	183
Institutional Food Workers	157
Food Service, Waiter/Waitress, & Dining Room Management/Manager	84
Meat Cutting/Meat Cutter	35
Wine Steward/Sommelier	7

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.