Welcome to the Culinary Institute of America
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    Cool Courses

  • Courses That Will Change You

    If there’s one thing you should know going into these and many other courses at the 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 the 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


  • Baking & Pastry Arts - Advanced Baking Principles course

    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!
    Baking & Pastry Arts - Café Operations course

    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.
    Baking & Pastry Arts - Confectionery Art and Special Occasion Cakes course

    The Art and Craft of Cakes

    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!).

  • Associate in Culinary Arts


  • Culinary Arts - Non-Commercial Foodservice and High-Volume Production course

    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 The Brewery at the CIA?).
    Culinary Arts - Principles of Menus and Managing Profitability in Foodservice Operations course

    What’s on the Menu? That’s Up to You!

    Design and create an actual menu that you would offer a guest in your hypothetical restaurant. You’ll consider factors like demographics, your restaurant’s concept, the local economy, cost control, and pricing, then present your menu and analysis results to the class. It all happens in Principles of Menus and Managing Profitability in Foodservice Operations.
    Culinary Arts - Seafood Identification and Fabrication course

    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.

  • Bachelor’s in Applied Food Studies


  • Applied Food Studies - Food Ecology

    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 Food Ecology 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.
    Applied Food Studies - Food History course

    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.
    Applied Food Studies - Project in Applied Food Studies course

    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!

  • Bachelor’s in Culinary Science


  • Culinary Science - Culinary Research and Development course

    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.
    Culinary Science - Ingredient Functionality course

    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.
    Culinary Science - Modern and Industrial Tools, Techniques, and Ingredients course

    Equipped for Success

    Ready for a (food development) challenge? The Modern and Industrial 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.

  • Bachelor’s in Food Business Leadership—Online

    CIA associate degree graduates only

  • Food Business Leadership - Food Business Leadership class

    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.
    Food Business Leadership - Advanced Food Service Operations

    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.
    Food Business Leadership - Project in Food Business Leadership

    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.

  • Bachelor’s in Food Business Management


  • Food Business Management - Art and Science of Brewing

    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 the 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!
    Food Business Management - Foodservice Management

    The Big Event

    Put everything you’ve learned at the 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.
    Food Business Management - Marketing and Promoting Food

    Sell Your Restaurant Concept

    Market research, segmentation, consumer behavior...the principles you’ll learn in Marketing and Promoting Food 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.

  • Bachelor’s in Hospitality Management


  • Hospitality Management - Contemporary Topics in Food and Beverage

    Trends: Are You Ready for the Future?

    What’s just a fad and what’s a trend with staying power? Together in Contemporary Topics in Food and Beverage, we’ll examine issues like sustainability, food sourcing, molecular gastronomy, food allergies, nutrition, and culinary science. And we’ll talk about each one’s importance to the many different segments of the hospitality industry.
    Hospitality Management - Justice, Ethics, and Leadership

    This is What it Takes to Be a Leader

    Equality, liberty, integrity...what do these concepts have to do with leadership in the hospitality world? Everything. In Justice, Ethics, and Leadership, you’ll discover how principles as varied as empathy and justice will inform and shape your ability to be an ethical decision-maker and effective people manager.
    Hospitality Management - Managing Technology in the Hospitality Industry

    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.

  • Master’s in Food Business


  • Master’s in Food Business (online) - Concept Building, Proving, and Prototyping

    If You Build It, They Will Come

    You’ll bring your food concept to life in Concept Building, Proving, and Prototyping! From the first prototype to a fully formulated and scalable business, you’ll have the chance to take a deep dive into your concept and evaluate it with your peers.
    Master’s in Food Business (online) - Design Thinking for Food

    Think Fast!

    Have fun, be creative, and get results in Design Thinking for Food. Working in teams, you’ll develop prototypes, use a process of rapid iteration to modify concepts, engage in customer interviews, and gain practice in pitching concepts to a team of peers.
    Master’s in Food Business (online) - Sales, Marketing, and Distribution

    To Market, To Market!

    Learn what it takes to get your concept out into the marketplace and reach your customers. From packaging, marketing, and sales to developing a solid distribution strategy, Sales, Marketing, and Distribution gives you actionable tools for success.

  • Master’s in Sustainable Food Systems


  • Sustainable Food Systems - Food Movement Voices: How to Create Change

    Find Your Voice

    Study the efforts and techniques of leaders, changemakers, events, and actions that have addressed food justice issues in Food Movement Voices: How to Create Change. Inspired by this work, you’ll then develop your own body of work with the capacity to provoke change within the system.
    Sustainable Food Systems - Sustainable Agriculture

    Dig In

    Get your hands dirty in your Sustainable Agriculture course, where you’ll use lectures, readings, and interactive activities to examine conventional agricultural practices and explore sustainable alternatives. You’ll work on creating change in practices, policies, and structures to improve agriculture’s contributions to climate change and greenhouse gas production.
    Sustainable Food Systems - In-Person Residencies

    West Coast to East Coast

    Gather with your cohort for two in-person residencies, held in the San Francisco Bay Area and New York Hudson Valley. You’ll participate in exploring the different food systems and sustainability elements of each region, visiting local farms, nonprofits, and food businesses. In New York, you’ll participate in the Menus of Change National Leadership Summit, meeting with the activists and changemakers guiding the food industry into the future.

  • Master’s in Wine and Beverage Management


  • Master’s in Wine Management - Distilled Spirits and Introduction to Mixology

    Real World Experience

    Find out what’s new and what’s next in the world of wine and beverage during your second residency based in the Napa Valley. You’ll participate in immersive education programs such as creative beverage, culinary, and sensory seminars, with guest speakers and industry professionals.
    Master’s in Wine Management - Fermented and Non-Alcoholic Beverages

    Bottoms Up

    Explore the culture, styles, production methods, and service techniques of spirits, beer, sake, cider, tea, coffee, juice, water, and more in Spirits, Fermented, and Non-alcoholic Beverages. Class lectures and demos will bring the beverage world to life. Independent tasting opportunities will be recommended, and group tastings will take place in the required residencies.
    Master’s in Wine Management - Viniculture and Viticulture

    Sun and Soil

    Learn about the forces of nature that affect the growing, cultivation, and production of wine in Viniculture and Viticulture. during your first residency. Through sensory analyses and guided tastings, you’ll discover the the impact of terroir and styles of farming and winemaking on the product that makes its way to the table.

  • Accelerated Culinary Arts Certificate Program


  • Accelerated Culinary Arts Certificate Program - Contemporary Topics in Culinary Arts course

    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.
    Accelerated Culinary Arts Certificate Program - Cuisines and Cultures of the Mediterranean course

    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.
    Accelerated Culinary Arts Certificate Program - Introduction to à la Carte Cooking course

    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.