Hospitality Management Degrees

Overview

The word "hospitality" denotes the act of being courteous and respectful towards one's guests. The contemporary usage is dominant in the field of the hospitality and service industry that includes hotels, restaurants, and travel and tourism. A hospitality management degree trains the students for the service industry. The various tasks they may have to be involved in are pre-booking and budgeting for different events, supervising table layout, welcoming guests and dealing with complaints. Other tasks include managing finances such as staff payroll, coordinating with the kitchen department, and managing staff, which includes organizing recruitment and training.

You can opt for hospitality management degrees from diploma programs to doctoral degrees. The duration of the hospitality management degree ranges from one to four years, depending on the program and the school at which you choose to study. The curriculum of the hospitality management degrees generally includes introduction to the hospitality and tourism industry, financial accounting for the service industries, introduction to tourism management, lodging management, sanitation and health in food service. Other topics for study include marketing, hospitality and tourism law, revenue management, club management, entertainment management, and supply management. Certain colleges also provide internship training programs for their students in order to provide them with a hands-on experience.

Benefits

In these times of recession, it is extremely important for each and every student to carefully decide the right career for themselves. A hospitality management degree guarantees the possessor a job. In the year of 2005, 12 million students were recruited by this industry. You can look forward to an average salary of $16 per hour. With experience, your salary can scale up to $113,000 annually. Also, many of the organizations offer their employees benefits such as health insurance, paid vacations and sick days, and reduced rates on accommodations, food, and travel.

Costs

Depending on the college or university at which you choose to study, the average tuition fee for a bachelor's degree program may be up to $37,000 per year and for a master's degree program, you may have to shell out $547 per semester credit hour. It is a good idea to look for a scholarship or financial aid, either from your college or from other sources, to help you bring down your financial burden.

Schools

Purdue University, San Jose State University, and Cornell University are some of the universities in the United States that offer bachelor degree programs in hospitality management.

Testing & Preparation

Students who wish to pursue a bachelor's or associate's hospitality management degree must have completed a high school curriculum with eight semesters of English, six semesters of academic mathematics, four semesters of laboratory science and foreign language. They must also have an overall grade point average (GPA) in all academic coursework as decided by the institution. For a master's degree, you must have been a human resource management (HRM) major and have at least a cumulative 2.75 GPA. You may also be required to take up the American College Test (ACT) or the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) if you want to pursue a bachelor's program, and the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) and Graduate Record Examination (GRE) tests for admission to a master's degree program.

Financial Aid

Almost all the colleges in the U.S. provide scholarships for deserving students. Besides that, there is always the option of applying for the Federal Student Aid. You can also approach ScholarshipExperts.com or private banks such as Citibank and Fifth Third Bank to obtain student loans.