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For those cooks out there who wish to bring their newly minted culinary skills to the public and earn money doing it there are several career paths that can be taken.

To begin with there is the more traditional path of honing your skills while working your way up the restaurant ladder, or brigade to be more precise. Start as a line cook and move up, gaining experience in the day to day operations of that kitchen as you go.

Bear in mind that while the basic objective of all kitchens are the same (cook good food in cost effective ways) every kitchen will be different. Expectation of a specific job differs from one restaurant to another depending on personality of the chef, spacial limitations and the way that kitchen is organized. Smaller restaurants, or fine dining restaurant may operate differently from the major chains that may also employ you.

Life inside a restaurant kitchen is however not the only use for hard earned culinary skills. The skills to make tasty food is always needed where it isn't expected: in school cafeterias, airline food service, hospitals or food service for the military. And there's always the possibility of bringing fine food to conference rooms full of hungry people if you choose catering.

The management and menu planning skills learned at cooking school can be put to use at a hotel planning and running banquets or managing a restaurant with your dual skills of knowing what life is like in and out of the kitchen.

There is always the possibilty of developing new foods for major or minor food companies, though any job requiring knowledge of the chemistry of food processing will most likely require further schooling. And grocery chains are making an effort right now to provide higher end take out food in their deli sections.

In short there is a mind boggling array of conceivable culianry careers, some that a shiny faced cooking student can fill right out of school, some that might require years of experienced but all to be considered in the exciting (or terrifying) years following graduation.

Learn more about this author, Holly Huffstutler.
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