Bergen Community College now serving up a ‘Certified Barista’ degree (Opinion)

Well, now I have heard at all. With actual college courses named “The unbearable whiteness of Barbie,” which is offered at offered at Occidental College in Los Angeles, and “Getting Dressed,” which you can sign up for at Princeton University, it should be no surprise to anyone that at Bergen Community College, you can take a course entitled, “Barista Fundamentals: Coffee & Tea.”

According to an article on NorthJersey.com, the course is the only “certified” barista course in the country.

But when you think about it, it actually makes sense.

Since I have never been good at math, I would never venture to guess how many possible combinations of coffee ingredients there are at your local coffee spot, but it’s probably in the thousands. Imagine having to learn and understand all of them? Not to mention the different types of coffee and the various methods of pouring, serving, and flavoring.

That’s why your local barista has a much tougher job than did good old Laverne, serving up your morning cuppa Joe behind the diner counter.

If there’s a place for a cannabis curriculum at a New Jersey college as there is at Stockton, then there’s certainly a place for a barista curriculum because both of them are burgeoning industries in New Jersey, catering to the generation that has now surpassed baby boomers in numbers.

It’s not easy to be a barista, as most of you know. Orders have become more and more complicated through the years especially at those shops that have a seemingly ever-expanding menu of shots, pumps, sizes and brews.

The course, which, according to the article, got filled up very quickly, was offered for the first time this spring semester at the Paramus campus. And with career opportunities for millennials being what they are here in New Jersey, with both their scope and pay relatively limited, perhaps becoming a “Certified Barista” isn’t such a bad career goal after all.