Culinary Arts for Life Long Learning

[Life Long Learning]

Culinary Arts for Life Long Learning?

Is the AAS in Culinary Arts degree and skill worth taking during retirement at the community college level?  Will it improve home cooking?

My guess is that every school you can find that offers an AAS also has a recreational cooking division.  These may or may not be classes taught by Culinary Arts faculty, that varies by school and by course.  But, the rec classes will certainly help you improve home cooking!!  I have taught in both, so to compare, a rec program doesn't require any preliminary skills to begin- you simply register for the "Holiday Breads" class and show up.  You'll learn a self-contained bit of information and the recipes for the class. You'll do cooking and tasting, and you'll not be graded- you'll go home with new skills and if you want to take additional classes later, none of those will build on your Holiday Breads course, they will also be self-contained.
Now, for culinary, step 1 is being trained in food sanitation and safety.  That will be a requirement for any course/degree, and from there you'll begin a sequential program that will be nearly identical no matter where you go.  You'll spend time first on your fundamentals: knife skills, mother sauces, and cooking methods.  At good schools, you'll do a LOT of it (a year), at lesser schools, that might just be 1 semester or even 1 class.  Those skills, fundamentals, will be the foundation of what you'll learn after- so all professional cooking stems from those 3 things.   That is truly the 101 stuff, and you're not really learning recipes at that stage, you're learning methods/techniques/and ratios.  Chefs use ratios for almost everything they make (note the contrast to recreational classes which use recipes).  You're also graded on your ability to do the tasks consistently and precisely.  For instance, your chef instructor will measure your vegetable cuts - they must be the same.  Your food trim waste will be weighed to assure the % of yield is good. Your sanitation and safety will be critiqued - and of course your sauces and stocks will be evaluated for clarity, consistency, taste, texture, etc.  I'll tell you now that you'll either develop a thick skin or you'll walk - being told daily that everything you're doing needs improvement can be hard on a person, but that is because every plate every day that you serve a guest - gets to be critiqued.  So, it's part of the deal.
Once you learn the fundamentals, you'll spend at least another year practicing them through other classes- that's where you'll see classes "in" something (Regional cuisine, garde manger, breakfast cookery, baking, etc.).  You'll also start taking the courses that give you foundational knowledge for work as a chef - your culinary math, purchasing, nutrition, menu planning, management, etc.   Those can happen anytime sprinkled through a program or wherever they fit in.  If any part of the program can be online, it is that set.  
That said, I've mentioned my husband is a culinary professor at a 4-year uni, and he has a "retired military" in almost every class.  Old guys living the dream - some want to have a food truck, others are just doing something they've always wanted to do.  If Uncle Sam is footing the bill, I say go for it.    

In my opinion, take a rec class, see if you like it.  Enrolling in the AAS degree program is if you're thinking of changing careers or working in the business.

Great advice so thank you. I just saved this as a pdf. I was hoping you would jump in with your 2-cents