General Cooking & Related Culinary Arts

Types of Degrees General Cooking & Related Culinary Arts Majors Are Getting

The following table lists how many general cooking & related culinary arts graduations there were in 2021-2022 for each degree level.

Education Level	Number of Grads
Undergraduate Certificate	1,371
Basic Certificate	1,099
Associate Degree	833

What General Cooking & Related Culinary Arts Majors Need to Know

In an O*NET survey, general cooking & related culinary arts majors were asked to rate what knowledge areas, skills, and abilities were important in their occupations. These answers were weighted on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the most important.

Knowledge Areas for General Cooking & Related Culinary Arts Majors

According to O*NET survey takers, a major in general cooking & related culinary arts should prepare you for careers in which you will need to be knowledgeable in the following areas:

• Food Production - Knowledge of techniques and equipment for planting, growing, and harvesting food products (both plant and animal) for consumption, including storage/handling techniques.
• 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.
• 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.
• Production and Processing - Knowledge of raw materials, production processes, quality control, costs, and other techniques for maximizing the effective manufacture and distribution of goods.

Skills for General Cooking & Related Culinary Arts Majors

general cooking & related culinary arts majors are found most commonly in careers in which the following skills are important:

• 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.
• Coordination - Adjusting actions in relation to others’ actions.
• Active Listening - Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
• Management of Personnel Resources - Motivating, developing, and directing people as they work, identifying the best people for the job.

Abilities for General Cooking & Related Culinary Arts Majors

As you progress with your general cooking & related culinary arts degree, there are several abilities you should pick up that will help you in whatever related career you choose. These abilities include:

• Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
• Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
• 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.
• Deductive Reasoning - The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
• Speech Recognition - The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.

What Can You Do With a General Cooking & Related Culinary Arts Major?

Below is a list of occupations associated with general cooking & related culinary arts:

Job Title	Job Growth Rate	Median Salary
Chefs and Head Cooks	9.6%	$48,460
Cooks	9.0%	$28,650
Cooks, Institution and Cafeteria	7.7%	$26,860
Cooks, Restaurant	11.8%	$26,530
First-Line Supervisors of Food Preparation and Serving Workers	9.3%	$32,450

Who Is Getting an Associate’s Degree in General Cooking & Related Culinary Arts?

This major is dominated by women with about 60% of recent graduates being female.

Racial-Ethnic Diversity

At the countrywide level, the racial-ethnic distribution of general cooking & related culinary arts majors is as follows:

Race/Ethnicity	Number of Grads
Asian	114
Black or African American	110
Hispanic or Latino	239
White	267
International Students	12
Other Races/Ethnicities	91

Geographic Diversity

Americans aren’t the only ones with an interest in General Cooking & Related Culinary Arts. About 1.4% of those with this major are international students.

How Much Do General Cooking & Related Culinary Arts Majors Make?

Salaries According to BLS

General Cooking & Related Culinary Arts majors often go into careers where salaries can range from $28,290 to $36,190 (25th to 75th percentile). 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 General Cooking & Related Culinary Arts

Some degrees associated with general cooking & related culinary arts may require an advanced degree, while others may not even require a bachelor’s in the field. 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 general cooking & related culinary arts have obtained the following education levels.

Education Level	Percentage of Workers
Less than a High School Diploma	14.2%
High School Diploma - or the equivalent (for example, GED)	46.2%
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)	16.0%
Some College Courses	7.0%
Associate’s Degree (or other 2-year degree)	11.9%
Bachelor’s Degree	4.6%
First Professional Degree - awarded for completion of a program that: requires at least 2 years of college work before entrance into the program, includes a total of at least 6 academic years of work to complete, and provides all remaining academic requirements to begin practice in a profession.	0.7%
Post-Doctoral Training	0.8%

Online General Cooking & Related Culinary Arts Programs

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)	99	0
Certificate (2-4 Years)	0	0
Associate’s Degree	87	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 General Cooking & Related Culinary Arts Worth It?

The median salary for a general cooking & related culinary arts 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 General Cooking & Related Culinary Arts

You may also be interested in one of the following majors related to general cooking & related culinary arts.

Major	Number of Grads
Culinary Arts/Chef Training	10,546
Baking & Pastry Arts/Baker/Pastry Chef	5,029
Restaurant, Culinary, & Catering Management/Manager	1,394
Food Preparation/Professional Cooking/Kitchen Assistant	786
Other Culinary Arts & Related Services	335
Institutional Food Workers	204
Culinary Science/Culinology	203
Bartending/Bartender	157
Food Service, Waiter/Waitress, & Dining Room Management/Manager	82
Meat Cutting/Meat Cutter	28
Wine Steward/Sommelier	8

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.