Is a career in Food and Nutrition Management right for you?

Centennial College’s Food and Nutrition Management program is ever-growing and shows great promise for both employment and student satisfaction. As t he longest established two-year program of its sort in the Greater Toronto Area, Centennial’s Food and Nutrition Management has been the recipient of numerous awards for its approach to preparing students to pursue challenging careers as managers in the dynamic and growing healthcare and food service industry. With such recognition, Centennial is the obvious choice for prospective students.

The program will build your skills in the areas of food, nutrition and management. Students will be able to secure careers in hospitals, long-term care facilities, community agencies and catering services.

Our program

During your time in the School of Community and Health Studies, you will learn to combine food service administration and healthcare to interpret and apply nutritional needs and principles to promote health. Among the specific knowledge and areas of practical application in food labs will be:

• Nutrition
• Food service
• Business
• Human relations
• Human resources
• Financial management
• Sanitation of food
• Menu planning
• Large quantity cooking
• Menu design
• Medical nutrition therapy

Putting Nutrition on the Menu

Students will learn how to develop menu plans, the fundamental elements of nutrition and compose recipes for specialized diets.

Get hands-on experience

During the fourth semester of the program, students will embark on a field placement to develop the managerial skills required to fulfill an entry-level position in the health care food/nutrition industry upon graduation.

Nationally Accredited

The Canadian Society of Nutrition Management (CSNM) accredits the Food and Nutrition Management program. As a graduate, you will be eligible for membership in the CSNM and the Ontario Society of Nutrition Management. CSNM membership is a requirement of the Ontario’s Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care to work in a long-term care facility and many acute care facilities.

What students are saying

"The Food and Nutrition Management program was pivotal in my success in the field - it equipped me with valuable knowledge and practical skills to succeed in a highly competitive industry. Teachers are very informative and highly connected to the vast partners in the field - allowing for valuable insight, input and education which open doors to great career opportunities".

-Nancy Au, Food and Nutrition Management Graduate, 2013

As a student of one of the highest regarded programs, you will feel confident knowing that Centennial is the right choice to help you get closer to the career you always wanted.

High School Graduates: Four Reasons Why You Should Look into College Degree Programs

There are many different paths out there for a student looking to enter the post-secondary world, get a higher education, and become employed, and one that frequently slips through the cracks is four-year college Degree Programs. University education is commonly conceptualized as four years or more of higher learning, while college is thought of as two or three years of job training, so a college program with the length and depth of a university education may not even occur to people. But there's numerous advantages to taking a Toronto Degree Program, and these include…

1. You'll get the same theory as a university education
While college programs focus on job skills, there's something to be said about the theoretical background a university education offers. After all, it's much easier to be confident in your actions when it comes time to get on your feet if you've been provided with courses of procedures and best practices. A four-year program gives you time to spend semesters learning that theory in a classroom before going out into the field.

2. It'll be supplemented with practical skills training
That "going out into the field" thing is important, though, and is the major advantage of a program based in a college. Toronto-based institutions like Centennial College treat their education as a dry run of the actual job a student will be doing upon completion of the program, and so aim to simulate the work they'll be doing as directly as possible. For example, Centennial's computer-related degree programs give their students access to laboratories featuring the technology they'll use in their jobs, including VoIP, cellular networks, and wireless broadband.

3. It's a specialized education
Another advantage from the fact that this program is held at college: Instead of being a general education, these degree programs are designed to put you into a specific career, or even a specific job. You've certainly heard jokes about university students taking english, or liberal arts, or some sort of general education, and how it supposedly doesn't lead to a career. While that's not really true (it's how the student applies what they learn), these college programs do have the advantage of pointing you towards a specific career, and teaching skills applicable to that.

4. It will lead you to a job
Really, that's the truth of college education: Skills training for an actual career. Higher education is excellent, but at the end of the program, you still need a career and money to carry on with your life. Between the skills college gives you, and the professionals you'll network with, you'll be well on the way to starting advancing up whatever corporate ladder you want to climb. And because a degree program spread out over four years, you don't have to sacrifice that theoretical base that university is known for. In a way, degree programs are the best of both worlds, and offer students looking for employment a uniquely blended learning experience.

College Degree Programs: The Advantages of Taking Your Time

An oft-cited advantage of college programs is their rapid rate of completion. Within two or three years, you can get a practical, job-focused education, and be out of school and in the workforce. There's even fast-track single-year programs, if that's your thing. However, there's a new option available for college students who want a little bit more our of their program: Certain colleges in Toronto offer Degree Programs which run for four years, letting you get a College Degree that comes with both practical education and theory of the profession. Of course, it takes a bit longer to get this sort of degree, but there are advantages to the extra time.

The extra preparation pays off
It's better to enter the workforce prepared and later than early and unskilled. Consider what you'll be spending that extra time doing: Learning the theory along with the practical. Traditionally, theory and practical were split between university and college respectively, but in a degree program, you're getting both as one education. Rather than delaying your entry into the workforce, you're banking that extra time so you'll enter it with a broader intellectual base than the average college student, which brings us to how…

You'll need to stand out
The way to not be the "average college student" is to have a unique educational background. In a crowded job market, that unique background can cut you ahead of the mob and put your resume to the top of the pile (sometimes literally). Possessing both a university's theoretical education and a college's practical training is one way to stand out, demonstrating your special perspective on the career you wish to enter.

Maturity and wisdom is important
Consider yourself and your viewpoints a short two years ago, and how they've changed in the interim. There's a significant difference between entering the workforce at 20 and 23, and 23 and 26. It's a cliche, but this phase of your life is a time of change, and over the course of a few years your ideas, perspective, and personality will shift. Entering the workforce a few years later can put you ahead of the crowd strictly by making you a slightly more mature, wiser voice.

You'll learn what you really want
As your maturity level shifts, so too does your outlook on your job and your career. While Degree Programs at institutions like Centennial College focus on a specific career, there's room for variation within that career, and electives to be taken so you can focus on a specific aspect. Over the course of those four years, you'll have a chance to examine every facet of your career, and decide what area of it really want to be in, and what suits you best. That time to consider what you want out of life before making the leap into the workforce will be immensely valuable.

Step Outside The Classroom: Why College is More Than Your Courses

Your academics will always be important to your success in life. They're not the only factor, however, and there's more that you should be doing when you're in college than simply attending classes and doing the work. The social experience that comes with spending time at a Toronto College attending events, joining clubs, or simply hanging around can be equally valuable. It's not slacking. It's an investment in your future. Here's why:

Social links will help you in times of need
Everyone needs some help sometimes, and having the support of a community of student friends will be valuable when the going gets tough in school. Whether it's getting assignments finished, sharing resources like notes or textbooks, or just having someone to vent to when stress gets to you, there's numerous advantages.

Take studying for an exam, for example. I've found in the past that the best way to learn a subject is to attempt to explain it to someone else. Having to teach a subject embeds it in your own mind, and having a friend teach it back to you makes it an equal exchange. And on top of that, even if you think you've studied all the important bits, having someone else's perspective when cramming is an excellent way to pick up on things you possibly hadn't thought of.

Those social connections will also link you to a career
Getting a job these days is all about who you know, a process formally known as networking. Students, teachers, guest lecturers, and anyone else you need in school who's vaguely connected to your career field can be a potential connection to a job, so getting to know those around you is an essential part of the employment game.

There's ways other than networking that these social connections can help you, too. For one thing, you're going to have to do at least a few job interviews in your lifetime, and they include the question "tell us how your friends describe you?" Inevitably, you'll need to know some of those opinions. And even if that's not the question, it's harder than you think to describe yourself. Having some friends describe you can be a shortcut to that particular answer.

You'll need to know how for your job.
Life experience is more important than grades, and there's one practical bit of life experience that they don't teach in a classroom: How to connect with people. No matter your profession, you're going to need to know how. It could be to get the job, or it could simply be while you're on the job, interacting with coworkers and customers. Practice makes perfect, and the supportive ecosystem that is college is the perfect place to hone that skill. Socialization is universal, and something everyone should look into developing. After all, the people around you, being in the same school and being at the same point in their lives, all have something to talk about with you.

How to Succeed in a Joint Program: Five Easy Steps

One of the many options for a student looking for a quality post-secondary education is a joint journalism program between a college and university. In this case, a joint program has you taking classes at a university for a Bachelors Degree Program, then heading to college for a practical diploma focused around the same area of study. There's numerous advantages to this set up. For one thing, you get to leave with both theoretical and practical knowledge of a subject, and leave the program with both a degree and a diploma. More advantageous to your personal development is the fact that you'll get to attend two different campuses, and get a slice of two different sorts of student life. This will prove to be the key to your success, and here's how to take advantage of it:

1) Focus on skills development, not grades
Obviously, you still need to do well, but bear in mind both of these schools are supposed to be helping you, and you're not there to serve them. You're at college for job skills, and university for mental skills. Pay attention to what abilities you can pull from your program, and be prepared to nurture them, and show them off in your portfolio, your resume, and job interviews.

2) Take writing seriously
Out of all the skills you can learn, you should always pay attention to writing. Even in the digital age, you'll still need to send emails, resumes, cover letters, proposals, and other formal communications. And in both college and university, you'll be writing assignments, too. Take the time to learn how to communicate clearly and formally, and you'll always have an advantage over those that can't, regardless of the career. Speaking of careers…

3) Search for the exact career that suits you
Even if you're taking a narrow subject, there's still a a broad set of careers you can find yourself in. And if you're in a joint program, you'll get an increased perspective on what you can become when school's over. And it's important that you do, because your career will define part of your life, so it's important you find one that's rewarding, fits your strengths, and that you find enjoyable.

4) Take advantage of the smaller classes
By the time you reach the college part of the program, you'll be able to appreciate the pros of not inhabiting a 300 person lecture hall, namely the fact that your professor will know who you are, your questions have a good chance of being answered, and you will receive a more personalized education. Be sure to make use of this, and develop those skills as well as you can.

5) Pay attention to the people
They'll be the ones getting you the job, albeit indirectly by networking. And attending a joint program means you'll find yourself on two campuses, with double the network of people. So, get to know teachers and students alike, forge some bonds, and be prepared to see those bonds lead you to post-school career success.