Academic Programs
Cool Courses
Courses That Will Change You
If there’s one thing you should know going into these and many other courses at CIA, it’s this: expect the unexpected. Your classes will feed your passion…challenge you…and maybe even surprise you. They’ll introduce you to a world of food you’ve never seen before, and make you think about it in a whole different way. Take a look at some of these cool, wow-factor courses as only CIA can deliver them. Whichever program you choose, you’ll always find something new and exciting along the way…
Associate in Baking and Pastry Arts
Presto Change-o!
Your challenge in Advanced Baking Principles class? Transform traditional recipes for breads, muffins, desserts, and other baked goods into new versions that accommodate special diets such as vegan, gluten-free, no-sugar-added, and dairy-free—and are just as delicious as the original!
If You Bake It, They Will Come
Put everything you’ve learned about baking and pastry and back-of-the-house operations into practice in the college’s super-popular Apple Pie Bakery Café. In Café Operations class, you’ll create delicious breads, pastries, and savory items for hungry, appreciative customers.
Rise to the Occasion
In Specialty Breads, you’ll take your bread game far beyond the basics. Work with naturally leavened doughs, explore flatbreads, and global classics, and get hands-on with the craft behind great baking. You’ll dive into fermentation, experiment with alternative grains, and see how small shifts in technique create breads with real character. It’s equal parts science, skill, and instinct—built one loaf at a time.
Modern Masterpieces
Let your creativity run wild! In Confectionery Art and Special Occasion Cakes class, you’ll design, bake, and decorate three-tiered wedding cakes; learn to work with ganache, gum paste, and pastillage; and pour, blow, and pull sugar (kinda like blowing glass—very cool!).
The Art and Craft of Cakes
Step into the art of Contemporary Cakes and Desserts. Create amazing entremets, travel cakes, and show-stopping desserts using modern techniques, molds, and tools. From chocolate and sugar décor to bold flavor pairings, you’ll craft desserts that balance innovation, seasonality, and stunning simplicity.
Associate in Culinary Arts
Turn Up the Volume
Here’s where the action gets fast and furious! Prepare breakfast, lunch, and dinner at The Egg for large numbers of hungry CIA students in Non-Commercial Foodservice and High-Volume Production. Many of the dishes you create will focus on sustainable, plant-forward principles (how about waffles made with spent grains from CIA’s brewery?).
Menu Mastery
Build the skills that turn great food into a successful business in Principles of Menus and Managing Profitability in Foodservice Operations. You’ll design menus that attract guests and drive sales while exploring layout, pricing, and consumer behavior. Learn to manage costs, control expenses, and make decisions that keep your operation efficient, competitive, and profitable.
Fish Out of Water
Freshwater and saltwater fish, shellfish, crustaceans…you’ll learn how to choose, store, and prep them all in Seafood Identification and Fabrication. Even better? Knowing that 95% of the proteins you’ll be working with meet Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch guidelines for being sustainably sourced.
Mediterranean Magic
From sun-soaked coasts to bustling spice markets, you’ll cook your way across the Mediterranean in Cuisines and Cultures of the Mediterranean. Prepare, taste, and serve regional dishes while exploring the ingredients, techniques, and bold flavors that define each cuisine—and discover how culture and geography shape every bite.
A Cut Above
Break it down—literally—in Meat Identification, Fabrication, and Utilization. Get hands-on with beef, veal, pork, lamb, poultry, and game, learning how to cut, trim, tie, and transform proteins like a pro. Along the way, you’ll explore grading, costing, purchasing, and the journey from farm to table—while mastering the tools and techniques of professional butchery.
Bachelor’s in Food Business Management
Crafting Your Future
Here’s your chance to learn about the ingredients, equipment, and techniques of making craft brews in our own on-campus brewery. The beers you’ll make in Art and Science of Brewing will be served in CIA’s public restaurants. Two of our student-made brews even earned gold medals in the New York State Craft Beer Competition, and our brewery was named the 2019 Brewery of the Year!
The Big Event
Put everything you’ve learned at CIA into designing and executing a themed dining event that benefits scholarships and community organizations. You and your Foodservice Management classmates will divide up into marketing, finance, culinary, baking and pastry, and service teams to deliver an amazing customer experience.
Sell Your Restaurant Concept
Market research, segmentation, consumer behavior…the principles you’ll learn in Marketing Principals come together as you create a restaurant concept. From menu and pricing to interior design and marketing (and a simulated budget of $10K), you’ll sell your vision to your class and choose a winner.
The Startup Studio
Turn your idea into something real by building a clear path forward in Business Planning. You’ll define the who, what, when, how, and why of your concepts while developing strategy around marketing, staffing, operations, and finances. With close guidance, you’ll build a complete, professional plan that feels practical, focused, and ready to launch.
Menu Mastery
Build the skills that turn great food into a successful business in Principles of Menus and Managing Profitability in Foodservice Operations. You’ll design menus that attract guests and drive sales while exploring layout, pricing, and consumer behavior. Learn to manage costs, control expenses, and make decisions that keep your operation efficient, competitive, and profitable.
Get an Up-close look at CIA
Tour Campus or Attend an Online Event
Whether you’re looking to visit one of our campuses or would prefer the convenience of a virtual event, there’s no better way to learn more about CIA than with one of our admissions events.
Bachelor’s in Applied Food Studies
Get Your Hands Dirty!
Dig in at the teaching garden, wield a hammer tapping maple trees, and discover the relationship between humans and nature. In Ecology of Food you’ll explore questions related to our food supply like how and where food is grown, and what is involved in processing and transporting that food.
A Blast from the Past
History is so cool, especially when you see what an important part food played in it! In Food History, you’ll get the chance to curate an on-campus food-focused museum exhibit, recreate and reinterpret recipes from a 14th century cookbook, and discover how food opens a window into understanding societies, cultures, and the world.
What’s the Buzz?
Build, maintain, and harvest honey from an on-campus apiary. Create a seed library to preserve and propagate heirloom varieties of produce. Build a Student Garden at a local elementary school. All of these are experiential research projects developed in the Project in Applied Food Studies class. Got a great idea? Make it so!
Food for the Future
Explore Sustainable Food Systems and see how food shapes communities, the environment, and the planet. You’ll see the impact of production, distribution, and waste through hands-on projects and discussions. Along the way, discover how chefs, farmers, businesses, and consumers can drive a fairer, greener, and more sustainable food system.
Food Rules
Step into the world of Food Policy and see how decisions reach your plate. Power, politics, and economics collide to shape farming and global food systems. You’ll explore real-world conflicts and solutions, and uncover how governments, corporations, and activists influence what we eat every day.
Bachelor’s in Culinary Science
The Next Big Idea is Yours
In Culinary Research and Development, you’ll work in teams to create and develop a product to present to the faculty and industry guests. Recent Cul Sci students designed meal kits (think: Blue Apron), bringing them from concept, product development, and consumer testing to packaging, marketing, and distribution.
Power Up Your Cooking
Fun with hydrocolloids (xanthan gum, gellan gum, and other food substances that form gels) and more! That’s what awaits you in the Ingredient Functionality class. Through cool experiments—like making a popping mango gel with sodium alginate and calcium lactate in a fruit purée—you’ll begin to understand the power of your ingredients.
Equipped for Success
Ready for a (food development) challenge? The Modern and Industrial Cooking Tools, Techniques, and Ingredients course has lots of them! Learn to think outside the box as you bring your food R&D knowledge and cooking skills together in hands-on projects like taking a classic Escoffier recipe and modernizing it for mass production.
Taste Lab
Unlock the science behind what we taste and why it matters in Flavor Science and Perception. Explore how our senses shape flavor experiences. Conduct experiments that reveal how context, chemistry, and individual perception influence what we enjoy. Learn to design sensory tests and use findings to guide real-world product development. Flavor will never taste the same.
Chemistry of Cooking
Step into the science behind cooking and build a real understanding of how ingredients work in Culinary Chemistry. You’ll explore flavor reactions, volatile compounds, and enzyme activity as food transforms. Lab sessions bring concepts to life so you can refine technique, think critically, and use chemistry with confidence to elevate your approach to food.
Bachelor’s in Hospitality Management
Event Ops
Turn ideas into experiences in Event Design and Project Management. You’ll learn how events come together from concepts to execution while working through real logistics like timelines, coordination, and planning tools. Explore how technology and social media shape modern events and build the skills to design experiences that run smoothly and stand out.
Craft Venture
Step into the world where creativity meets entrepreneurship in The Business of Craft. You’ll explore craft breweries, distilleries, cideries, and small wineries while learning how they build brands and destination experiences. Through guest insights and hand-on work, you’ll develop a product, test its market, and create a business plan for a real craft beverage concept.
Tech-Savvy Hospitality
Technology is just as vital to the hospitality business as it is to your everyday life. In Managing Technology in the Hospitality Industry, you’ll learn how to choose, implement, and manage tech solutions for a variety of settings. And you’ll hear about up-and-coming technologies and evaluate their potential for hospitality.
Built For Service
Go behind the scenes where hospitality happens in Hospitality Operations Management. You’ll see how restaurants and venues are shaped through design choices, equipment planning, and construction basics. Learn what it takes to keep facilities successfully running day to day, then bring it all together by designing your own foodservice operation using industry software.
The Strategy Playbook
Big hospitality decisions shape everything from brand identity to global growth in Strategic Management in the Hospitality Industry. You’ll look at how companies build strategy, respond to change, and expand through branding, mergers, and new ventures. This capstone course pushes you to think like a leader—balancing competition, growth, and responsibility to all stakeholders.
Bachelor’s in Food Business Leadership—Online
CIA associate degree graduates only
Discover What It Takes to Lead and Succeed
Develop your leadership skills to help grow your career with the Food Business Leadership course. Learn to lead from your strengths by assessing your personal style. You’ll study major theories and models of leadership, then put them into practice by applying your own methods in a case study format.
Learn How to Keep Things Running Smoothly
How do you maximize profits and ensure guest satisfaction? Find out in Advanced Food Service Operations, where you’ll examine how to consistently achieve these through a deep understanding of menu development, staffing, production flow and timing, purchasing, and controlling costs for profitability.
Get Real with an Actual Food Company
In the capstone course Project in Food Business Leadership, you’ll conduct extensive research and analysis of an existing business—from company culture and internal systems to business strategies and competitors—then develop recommendations and a plan to address problems or opportunities within that organization.
Accelerated Culinary Arts Certificate Program
You Can Play with Food!
Think of Contemporary Topics in Culinary Arts as your culinary sandbox. Through an experimental kitchen approach, you’ll explore taste and flavor; plant- and protein-based diets; food and wine pairing; healthy cooking techniques; and the flavors of the global kitchen.
Olives, Wheat, Garlic, and Wine
California cuisine is known for its Mediterranean influence, so it makes perfect sense to dive deep into the ingredients and cooking methods of Spain, France, Italy, Morocco, Tunisia, Greece, and Egypt. In Cuisines and Cultures of the Mediterranean, you’ll discover how each country’s food is shaped by geography, history, and culture.
Get Fired Up
“Order, fire, pickup!” In Introduction to à la Carte Cooking, you’ll experience the energy of the production kitchen as you prepare multi-course menus for fellow students. And you’ll do it all using the techniques you learned in Culinary Fundamentals and by practicing batch cooking and à la carte-style service.
admissions
The business of food and hospitality is your future—and there’s no better place to start than here.
Throughout the year we offer campus tours, open houses, and online events so that you can ask questions, learn more about our degree programs, and chat with admissions counselors.
Chat With a Student
Are you curious about what it’s really like to attend CIA? We’ve got you covered. Our students are ready to answer the questions you haven’t asked anyone else, share their own personal experiences, and give you genuine advice—because they’ve gone through it, too.