Culinary Arts Major - Bachelor of Arts

There’s an emphasis on practical and professional skills. You can tailor the degree to your interests and include papers from related disciplines like food science, hospitality, tourism, event management, human resource management or marketing.

In your first year, you become familiar with culinary arts as a discipline. You collaborate with your classmates to discuss culinary arts culture and explore concepts of sensory appreciation. This year, you choose a single major, minor or a double major to study in your second year. In Year 2 and 3 you take more advanced culinary arts papers.

Core papers

All students in the Bachelor of Arts complete core papers that cover effective communication, critical thinking and other transferable skills you'll need for your future career.

COMM570 Academic Communication: Conventions and Expectations
CLSY500 Culture and Society
CLSY504 Knowledge and Inquiry
CULN795 Advanced Culinary Showcase

Culinary arts papers

Papers you could take over your three years of study include:

CULN510 Professional Culinary Arts
CULN511 Commercial Culinary Practice
CULN602 Contemporary Cuisine in Aotearoa
CULN603 Nutrition and Wellbeing
CULN702 Food Ethics and Sustainability
FOOD501 Food and Senses
GAST601 Gastronomy
MGMT721 Leadership Principles, Perspectives and Practice
SOSC701 Sociology of Food

Practical industry experience

The Advanced Culinary Showcase paper is at the heart of your final semester, giving you the opportunity to create an event. This practical experience helps you build further skills for the workplace and consolidate your decision on your professional career after graduation.

Final-year Bachelor of Arts in Culinary Arts students hosted Hope, Strength & Love; a charity fundraising dinner for Breast Cancer Cure. The dinner, a 5-course degustation, was designed with the support of celebrity chefs Ray McVinnie, Ben Baley and Des Harris. The event raised over $3,000 for the charity.

Skills you will develop

The outcomes for graduates of this major are outlined in the Graduate Profile below.

Graduate Profile

Other requirements for this major

The practical side of this programme involves using commercial kitchen tools and equipment and requires you to demonstrate a level of skill that doesn’t compromise any health and safety standards for yourself and others.

Skills needed for culinary arts courses