After the journeyman certificate — how you move forward

One of the best things about vocational education is that it can be either your goal or your starting point. As a qualified nutrition assistant, you can work in the field for the rest of your life — or you can use it as a stepping stone to something more. Both are completely right choices.

§Become sharper where you stand

The shortest path forward is to improve yourself within the trade. There are courses and further education in everything from diet food and special diet to allergy management, sustainable production, hygiene and running a kitchen. It is a good way to open up new tasks and a bit more responsibility without leaving everyday kitchen work.

• 01Specialization in diet and hospital catering.
• 02Courses in sustainability, ecology and food waste.
• 03Courses in management, planning and economics in large kitchens.
• 04Update in hygiene, self-checking and food safety.

§Further in a short higher education

If you want papers for more, the profession can provide access to shorter higher educations. Here you can for example read further in directions that deal with food and production where you combine your practical craft with technical and commercial knowledge. It opens up jobs with more planning, development and responsibility in the food industry.

§Professional bachelor in nutrition and health

The most obvious longer path is the professional bachelor's degree in nutrition and health. It's a medium-length higher education typically lasting around three and a half years, where you work much more theoretically with nutrition, health, illness and communication. As a nutrition assistant you already have solid practical knowledge to build on, and many find that professional experience from the kitchen makes the theory come alive.

The way towards clinical dietitian

If you take the professional bachelor's degree with the right specialization, you can work as a clinical dietitian. As a clinical dietitian, you provide nutrition guidance for disease — for example, for obesity, cardiovascular disease, gastrointestinal disorders, or kidney disease — and you work closely with doctors and nurses. It is a job where you go from making the food to advising on it at a high professional level.

§Master in your own kitchen

Finally the way forward can be management. With experience you can become kitchen manager or sous chef with responsibility for budget personnel menu plans and development. Here it is your trade plus your experience with people that carries you forward — and often supplemented with management and operations courses.

“You don't need to choose everything now. The journeyman certificate gives you the freedom to go further — the day you want to.”