Finding the Perfect College Major: The Foodie Edition

By Ian Donnelly

Do you have a passionate relationship with your taste buds? Is your TV permanently tuned to the Food Network? Are you planning your spring break travels around the top restaurants rather than the top party towns? Then there’s no denying it: you’re a bona fide foodie.

But what’s a college-bound foodie to do when it’s time to pick a major? Everyone has heard the age-old advice about turning your passion into a career, but that doesn’t narrow down the buffet-style curriculum you have to choose from. If you’re looking for a spoonful of guidance, uCribs has you covered with this foodie-focused guide for finding the perfect college major!

Culinary Arts

For starters, there’s the obvious answer—earning a culinary arts degree is a clear-cut track to follow your passion for food. Even though there are no formal requirements to become a chef, it is widely agreed that perfecting the art comes from both education and on-the-job experience. A strong culinary arts program will whip you into top-chef shape with the theory and practical skills you need to succeed.

An associate degree in the culinary arts is the most popular option for aspiring chefs. Students get to spend a hardy helping of quality time in the kitchen where they receive hands-on training, but the degree also incorporates kitchen management skills that prepare you for the business side of a chef career. There are even focused degrees for particular types of food or food art, which can be valuable for networking your skills once you’re out in the actual job market.

You could also decide to pursue a bachelor’s degree, which is a sought-after qualification for restaurant management positions. The hospitality industry often seeks managers with an understanding of food preparation and a mixture of business skills that are baked into a bachelor’s degree in culinary arts.

Food Science

If you love experimenting in the kitchen, then food science may be your ideal fit. It’s the perfect blend of science, math, and real-world know-how to satisfy your inquisitive appetite. Most courses in food science have a laboratory as well as a lecture component, so you can keep up with your tinkering and experimentation as you step out of the kitchen and into the classroom.

Students learn all about the nuts and bolts of the modern food industry and get hands-on experience in subjects like food preparation, food chemistry, and agricultural development. While the course load may seem like an engineering degree at heart, food scientists are the lab equivalent of chefs— they come up with new ideas, taste test, and explore exciting culinary possibilities. They use their solid grounding in science to work with food manufacturers and producers to solve real-world issues.

You know those food labels you see on everything at the grocery store? As a food science major, you’ll learn all about food composition and how manufacturers come up with those label configurations. It’s a degree that can make a difference, preparing graduates for jobs that will help keep the world’s food supply healthy, sustainable, and standardized. And hey, if you do end up writing those food labels, can you possibly make the font a little bigger?

Biotechnology

If you religiously follow recipe instructions right down to the punctuation, you can’t go wrong with a biotechnology major. This field deals with food science on the far end of the spectrum, looking at meals on the micro level. Your studies will explore parts of the dinner plate that most people never see, examining the basic building blocks of food and how our bodies process different nutrients.

This major is not for the faint of heart. You won’t have much time for throwaway classes with semesters full of heavy-hitters like biochemistry, genetics, and microbiology. The biotechnology track grants students with an academic grasp of science, business, and technology, incorporating lectures and labs that teach you how take your theories and put them to practical use.

While the courses may look daunting, the payoff of a biotechnology track is as rewarding as it is essential—graduates aren’t just trained to work in the food and agriculture industries. You’ll be trained to innovate and create the next vital vaccines, medicines, growth hormones for plants and animals, and food additives.

Journalism

All your favorite celebrity foodies, culinary critics, and travelling food writers started somewhere, and more often than not it’s with a degree in journalism or English. It takes strong writing skills to show off your most valuable asset: your taste buds. The courses you’ll take as a journalism major build your chops, positioning you among the sharpest tongues in the business.

So many celebrated authors are quoted for saying, “writing is rewriting,” that it’s become a cliché phrase. Despite who may have said it first, students on the journalism track will learn just how right these cherished authors are. Classes are designed to teach the art of reporting, writing, and rewriting, but you’ll also learn about the business side of the journalism world and the smorgasbord of legal issues you could face within your line of work—like libel, first amendment rights, and even copyright laws, which those celebrated authors could use to solve this quoting conundrum.

Journalism students will hit the ground running in this major and quickly get a taste for the day-to-day pressures of working under a deadline. Your assignments may rack up a daunting page count, but that’s the tradeoff for pursuing a career that lets you dine out for a living.

Photography

If you can’t dig into a meal without posting it to Instagram first, a photography major is right up your alley. It helps to be a bit of a techie as well as a foodie for this career–photography students learn all about cameras, how they function, and how to achieve the affects you want in the frame. You will also get plenty of practice with a course load that provides a healthy blend of technical knowledge and time spent behind the lens developing your keen eye.

Photography majors spend a good portion of their study time in the studio, but classes also teach you the insights of color balance, composition, and the use of light. Students get to experiment in the darkroom—a concept you may not be familiar with if you were born with a smartphone in your hands—and turn theory into artistic instinct as they build their portfolio.

As far as foodie majors go, photography is a rising star. Thanks to photo-driven social media platforms like Instagram, food photographers are some of the biggest influencers in modern foodie culture. The app is practically filled to the brim with food-focused accounts that boast tons of followers, and it’s a safe bet that the most popular profiles are run by trained photographers. With a photo degree under your belt, there’s nothing to stop you from capturing mouth-watering shots like the pros—except your own appetite, so make sure you snap those pictures before you have a bite.

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