The culinary experience starts young, starting with the moment we eat. The Herriman High School culinary courses, including Prostart, Baking, and Intro to Food teach students ways to make the foods they love to eat.   As you walk into a culinary class, you’ll see students making these favorites a reality. 

The culinary classes that Herriman High offers have made it accessible for students to pursue their dreams of cooking and baking. Sometimes even professionally. Prostart helps to prepare students for careers in high-pressure fields such as catering or being a chef. The skills that students learn from any of Herriman High’s culinary classes include composure under pressure, leadership skills, workplace safety, and event coordination. 

In an interview with Leslie Brock, one of the culinary teachers and the Prostart director here at Herriman High, she told us, “For the culinary pathway, the beginning course for that is Culinary 1 and beyond that, we have Culinary 2 which is combined with Prostart 1, and Culinary 3 and Prostart 2, and we also have Baking and Pastry.”

Courses such as Baking and Pastry and Intro to Culinary teach more general, beginner-level skills, such as food safety, time management, and working together as a team. Prostart, as well as college courses or culinary school, take those general skills and help you to apply them to professional-level culinary experiences. 

Colleges such as Utah Valley University, Salt Lake Community College, and Utah State University offer culinary courses. Additionally, if Prostart is taken before college, students will be far ahead of their peers. That offers them even greater opportunities and more chances to grow and succeed. culinary school, even for general students, brings students great new skills and chances to nurture their careers in exciting ways. 

Mrs. Brock commented on the upcoming events for Prostart, a course in catering, “We’re catering a homecoming dance for dance company. That’s for about 30 people. And later in the month of September, we’re doing another catering dinner for the dance company for 150 people.”

Although you can get into a culinary school without taking any culinary classes in high school, it helps a lot on recommendations and national certifications. “We offer concurrent enrollment which is accepted at our three main culinary schools[UVU, SLCC, USU] here in the state of Utah,” states Mrs. Brock. 

When entering the food industry, culinary course graduates are often at a higher level than their peers and could be made manager quickly due to the skills they have mastered earlier.  This helps new employees do well in restaurants, bakeries, and more. Benefits found in the workplace include: less difficulty in training, better understanding of procedures and methods in the kitchen, and showing your proficiency to your superiors, which could result in promotions.

The culinary classes offered here at Herriman High are all useful in growing skills you can use in a professional setting as well as in the home. The classes themselves can be rewarding and fun even without doing anything professionally with the skills you gain. Hopefully, students at Herriman High will use the skills and experiences gained from their culinary classes to do better in their personal and professional culinary lives.