School of Hospitality Offers Respected Education

From a campus that is fully equipped to help students in their training and dedicated professors to field placement experiences and hands-on courses, Centennial College’s School of Hospitality offers its students everything they need to be fully prepared to enter the hospitality, tourism and culture field upon education.

Comprised of 13 programs that offer students the skills they need to find employment across Canada, the School of Hospitality covers all five sections of tourism: accommodation, food and beverage and transportation and travel services, and recreation and entertainment. As such, some programs are open to anyone who has graduated high school (and meets other requirements such as a English Grade 12 C or U or equivalent, or skills assessment), while others require students to have already completed a college diploma or university degree.

Within the School of Hospitality, Baking – Commercial Bakeries, Culinary Management – International, Hospitality and Tourism Administration, Hospitality Operations – Kitchen Management, Hospitality Management – Hotel and Resort, Hospitality Management – Restaurant and Catering, Hospitality Foundations, Hospitality Services, Tourism Management, and Travel and Tourism are all undergraduate programs. Meanwhile, Hotel, Resort and Restaurant Management; Event Management – Festival and Conference; and Culture and Heritage Site Management are all Graduate Certificate programs.

Whether students of the School of Hospitality are attending graduate or undergraduate programs, they have access to Progress Campus, which houses all programs from this School of study. Among this campus’ faculties are a live restaurant called Horizon Restaurant where students can learn how to prepare freshly made food and serve it, schedule and make reservation recommendations and manage menus. There is also the Centennial Conference Centre, which boasts eight meeting rooms and sees uniformed students plan events. Lastly Progress Campus boasts computer labs that feature software that is beneficial to students of the School of Hospitality.

All School of Hospitality programs seek to ensure that students get a range of training that includes learning the latest business practices in marketing, human resources, finance and industry operations — as applied to the hospitality and tourism field. In addition, many offerings feature practical practice or work experience that sees students working in industry-approved workplaces to apply what they have learned and gain new knowledge from seasoned professionals who are currently employed in the field.

School of Hospitality programs vary in prerequisites. Students are advised to carefully note the requirements of their program of choice before applying.

Upon graduation from the School of Hospitality, students enter a field in which they cater to the 19.6 million people taking overnight trips to Canada — with almost four million visiting Toronto last year alone. The Canadian Tourism Human Resource Council anticipates that the food and beverage services sector will grow to employ 1.95-million people by 2015. In 2010, the accommodation, food and beverage sectors employed 1,086,000 people and generated revenues of almost $18.8-billion.