Cooking Up A Career

Culinary arts is the new rock n roll! Find out how you too can become a star in the kitchen with Nilai University College’s Diploma in Culinary Arts.

Guy Rubino, Gordon Ramsay, Anthony Bourdain, Jamie Oliver and our very own Chef Wan. The advent of so-many celebrity TV chefs is reflective of the status of a chef in today’s food and celebrity-obsessed society. Such is the pull of shows such as Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares and Oliver’s Naked Chef that Astro recently launched its Asian Food Channel to accompany the popular Discovery Travel & Living. Chefs are indeed the new idols and can command astronomical salaries especially if accompanied by the right credentials such as a Michelin star or two.

Thus it is not surprising more school leavers these days are looking to don the chef’s top hat in search of a lucrative and rewarding career. One institution of higher learning that has carved out a reputation for itself in this booming industry is Nilai University College (Nilai UC). It not only has some veteran lecturers in the School of Hospitality and Tourism but also boasts of having one of the best training kitchen facilities in the country.

“We believe practical experience is absolutely vital in the field of Culinary Arts. Thus having a basic kitchen alone is not enough. The training kitchen on Nilai UC’s campus is over 5,000sq ft large and comes equipped with a pastry room, bakery, butchery as well as a cold cuts room. These are facilities you hardly find anywhere else,” says Dr Muhammad bin Musa, head of Nilai UC’s School of Hospitality and Tourism. Other facilities include a 100-seater training restaurant, called Flamme, for food practicals which Dr Muhamad hopes to have functioning on a daily basis. At the moment, it is utilised at least 28 times each semester for the practical sessions but Dr Muhamad believes the practical experience is crucial. Thus he is hoping to have the training restaurant to serve lunch and dinner daily from next year onwards. “This way, students in this course will learn a lot more and they will be much better prepared when they finally go out into the working world,” he says.

Nilai UC has been teaching culinary arts at its 105-acre award-winning campus since 2005. The programme is designed to bring out the chef in you by transforming your inherent passion for cooking into a professional skill. Intakes are in January, March, May, July and September and minimum requirement is three credits in SPM.

“Of course, the most important ingredient necessary for a student to succeed in this line is a real passion to cook and create something which will excite the senses,” adds Dr Muhamad.
“Be warned though, this is not an easy career as the hours are long and hard and you will probably spend most of your time in the hot, sweaty confines of a boiling kitchen. But it is a hugely rewarding career as a person who can cook well will have a skill which is appreciated anywhere you go.”

Nilai UC’s Diploma in Culinary Arts programme also benefits from having some well-known industry partners such as the JW Marriot Hotel, Shangri-La Hotel, Nikko Hotel and Allson Klana Nilai among others. This means students will be able to garner real-life experience of working in a high-pressure cooker environment of a commercial kitchen. Upon completion of this two year and four month programme, students will be attached to one of Nilai UC’s partners for stint of at least four months.

“Starting January 2009, we will also be offering a B.A. (Hons) in Business and Hospitality Management for students who are looking to get a degree to further their career in the hospitality industry. This new addition is reflective of our commitment towards giving students a wider choice of programmes to choose from Nilai UC’s School of Hospitality and Tourism,” said Dr Muhamad.

Located in the lush, green suburb of Putra Nilai, the campus is a mere 45-minute drive from Kuala Lumpur city centre. Established in 1997, Nilai UC has nearly 3,000 students hailing from 50 different countries making its campus a cosmopolitan melting pot. Besides Culinary Arts, Nilai UC offers a wide range of programmes ranging from the Degree in Computer Science to Diploma in Aircraft Maintenance Engineering. For more information, please go to http://www.nilai.edu.my/ or call 06-8502338 / 03-5637 2619 / 07-333 2336 / 088-238811.