Digital Design
The digital design career field offers a wide variety of opportunities in everything from advertising to graphic design to multimedia production.
The Digital Design program at Gause Academy allows middle schoolers to begin preparing for these career opportunities — or simply find new ways to express their creativity.
In the Digital Design program, middle school students train on Adobe InDesign and Photoshop to begin preparing for industry certifications. As part of their training, they create a wide variety of products, including brochures and posters. These pieces can serve as the beginning of their professional portfolios, which can be used when applying to college programs or employers.
Middle school students can continue to study digital design throughout high school. At the high school level, students run Gause’s school-based enterprise, Signs of the Tiger, which creates custom-designed products such as banners and vinyl graphics for internal and external customers.
Culinary Arts
With world-class restaurants, amusement parks, and cruise lines all located within just an hour of Polk County, the culinary arts field offers abundant employment opportunities.
Gause Academy middle school students have the ability to begin preparing for a future career in the culinary arts before even entering high school.
The Culinary Arts program teaches students the theories and methods of food preparation and presentation, as well as sanitary kitchen practices. Students learn culinary vocabulary, knife safety, cooking times and temperature levels that avoid contamination, and more to prepare them to earn ServSafe certification, an industry-standard credential.
Students also have the ability to flex their creativity through activities in plate presentation and the school’s annual Cupcake Wars, a competition to bake the most irresistible cupcake on campus.
The Culinary Arts program is an excellent choice even for students who do not anticipate a career in the culinary field. Cooking is a necessary part of everyday life, and safe kitchen practices are just as relevant at home as they are in five-star restaurants.
Students have additional opportunities to hone their culinary skills through the school’s chapter of Family, Career and Community Leaders of America.
Culinary 1 & 2
Culinary 1 and Culinary 2 focuses on helping students make informed decisions regarding their future academic and occupational goals. The content includes; the development of leadership skills, communication skills, and employability skills, resource management; kitchen safety and sanitation; exploration of careers in the culinary field; kitchen basics and knives and small-ware; and hands-on skills that relate to the culinary industry.
