Start prepping NOW for your dream job or work-anywhere trade skills!
Ingredients for a Tasty Future
If you can handle the heat, get in the kitchen! Do you love good food and working with a great team? Are you looking for job skills you can put to work anywhere in the world? Then a career in the food service industry could be your recipe for success. Learn the basics of safe food handling and kitchen sanitation to earn your state Food Handler certification, opening the back door of restaurants across California to get you working. Then start mastering knife skills, cooking techniques, food science, and kitchen leadership. Your rewarding culinary career starts right here, right now!
If the hospitality side of the industry is calling your name, you’ll also meet hotel professionals who can check you into the ever-changing world of travel services. Learn on the job with an industry internship, preparing you with real-world experience you can take anywhere!
What You'll Learn
As early as freshman year, enroll in A-G approved courses to start preparing for your culinary or hospitality career. Classes include:
- CTE Concentrator Culinary & Hospitality
- CTE Capstone Culinary & Hospitality Honors
What You’ll Do
Take what you’re learning in the classroom into the real world and experience for yourself all that awaits you in this creative and customer-centered industry. Hands-on, immersive experiences include:
- Restaurant tours
- Food tastings
- Local farm visits
- Hospitality job-shadowing
Who You Can Be
Kickstart your career path with top-tier academic instruction and industry-leader insights. The Food Service and Hospitality program prepares you for potential careers like:
- Executive chef
- Prep or line chef
- Restaurant server/bartender
- Restaurant general manager
- Front desk/concierge
- Lodging manager
- Cruise or tourism host
Industry Average Wages: $43,000–$123,000
Projected Industry Growth: 2–3%
What You Need to Know
VUSD’s Food Service and Hospitality CTE track prepares students for careers in the hospitality industry, which includes restaurants, hotels, and tourism-related services. Students learn kitchen basics like safe food storage and sanitation and become “Serve Safe,” earning a two-year California state certification required of every restaurant employee, giving them a hiring advantage over job seekers who aren’t yet certified. Culinary experts offer instruction on knife skills and safety, recipe reading and adaptation, and measuring and kitchen math. In weekly labs, students practice cooking techniques by preparing a variety of delicious dishes, working in groups, and rotating leadership positions to gain experience across a range of kitchen roles. Classes take field trips to a local farm to learn about agriculture production and the benefits of working closely with local producers and spend time in a local hotel shadowing a hospitality professional.
Once you have gained the skills and knowledge in this pathway, there are many options for your next steps after high school - some you can even begin pursuing before you graduate!
2 Year
AA Culinary - Oxnard College
4 Year
BS Hospitality & Tourism Management - Cal Lutheran University