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One of the beauties of the catering industry is that you don’t always have to study for official qualifications to get in. Many people working in catering started off washing dishes or waiting tables and worked up to a management position. But if you know that working in catering is your dream career, or if you want to start your own catering business, you might be considering choosing a university degree that will help you achieve your career goals faster. Here are some ideal university degree choices to make if you are considering a future in the catering business.
Hospitality and Catering:
While it is not always offered as a degree option by many universities, you might find a degree that focuses solely on working in the catering business. It is often geared towards people who want to become restaurant managers or work in a business position in catering, rather than on the food production side of things. If cooking is more your thing, you’re unlikely to find a university degree, but there are plenty of vocational courses on offer where you can learn to be a chef and develop all the necessary skills needed. As every chef knows, practical learning is usually much more important than classroom learning for this job, so if working as a chef is your dream, the best route to take is usually a vocational course, plus as much on-the-job experience as you can find.
Management:
If you love the idea of managing a restaurant or working as an area manager for a large hospitality chain, a degree in business management may be just the ticket that you need. This degree course will help prepare you for the management side of things and covers a wide range of skills necessary to become a successful manager in any industry, including catering. A great thing about studying for a degree in management is that if you do ever decide to change industries in the future, you could easily apply it to many others including retail, healthcare, and more.
Entrepreneurship:
If you dream of starting your own catering business one day, a degree in business and entrepreneurship might be just what you need. While there’s no need to get a degree to start your own business, this can certainly help, as you’ll spend three to four years learning about everything that it takes to be a successful business owner. You may already be a great chef or cook and know exactly what it takes to produce food that people love, so this degree will help you brush up your skills on everything else that goes into running a successful catering business like finance and accounting, marketing, human resources and more.
There are plenty of universities across the country that provide business and entrepreneurship courses and you can find a full list at University Compare. For instance, Bournemouth’s courses can be seen here which are delivered by the AACSB accredited Business School (less than 5% of business schools worldwide are accredited by them). Have a look at what’s available and hopefully you’ll find the one most suited to help you launch your catering career.
Marketing:
If you’d rather work on the business side than the food side of things, marketing can be an ideal subject to study. Every restaurant and catering business needs good marketing strategies to keep customers coming through the door, whether you wind up working for a large restaurant chain or a small local cafe. Marketing is a very interesting degree that you can also apply to various other industries if you ever decide that you’re ready for a change; you’ll learn about marketing psychology, digital and offline marketing, email, social media, word-of-mouth marketing, and more.
While working in catering doesn’t always require a university degree, studying for any of these subjects can help you secure your dream career.
What do you think?