Posted by Rick Denney on March 09, 2003 at 18:55:56:
In Reply to: A couple of euphonium questions..... posted by Heather McDown on March 09, 2003 at 14:42:33:
College is not for job training.
Let me repeat that: College is not for job training.
If you expect college to get you a job, you are setting yourself up for a major disappointment. That's not what it's for, and not what it does. Scary? Maybe, but not as scary as expecting college to do what it can't.
Let me define three alternatives for you. If they don't fit, adjust them.
1. You want to become a professional euphonium performer. If so, go to where the best teachers are, and study with them exclusively. If you have to be a student at UNT to study with Brian Bowman, then be a student, but major in the subject that gets in the way of your lessons with Dr. Bowman the absolute least. That might be a performance degree. You will have to be absolutely single-minded about your euphonium playing with your teacher--all else is secondary. Don't expect anything from your college attendence other than as a vehicle to connect you with the best teacher. If you can study with that teacher without going to the school, do it, and spend the rest of your time gigging.
I emphasize that this is what you do if you want to be a pro performer to the exclusion of all else--this is job training.
2. You want to be a music teacher. If this is the case, then take as broad a course of study as you can in college to become as educated as possible in as many subjects as possible. Become educated (not just trained) before you attempt to educate. Take the least number of education training courses required for certification. Those are not the courses that will make you educated, and if you aren't educated, you won't be a good teacher. Expect to go at least as far as a master's degree, or add a year (or two) and double-major in an unrelated subject like mathematics or history.
This is a compromise between getting a good education and getting job training, and compromises are usually less than optimal. The education won't be the greatest, and neither will the job training. You'll have to fill gaps in both in later life, and you should expect to do so. My own engineering degree was supposed to get me a good job, and it did, but I've spent the years since then trying to improve my education. It was a compromise for me, too.
3. You don't know what you want to do yet. This is probably the best position to be in. In this case, just study whatever interests you as a major and study as broadly as you can. Don't think of it as job training--you can do that later. You are trying to get educated.
Why do I prefer the third choice? Easy. Educated and competent people will always find a way to make a good living doing something.
Let me repeat that: Educated and competent people will always find a way to make a good living doing something.
Now, that doesn't mean they always choose to make a good living, but that is their choice.
Any well-educated person, even if their degree is in music, can get a decent job and do it well with the thinking skills and broad experience they received from their education. It may not be performing music. It may be owning a music store. It may be running the music section of a record store (which probably pays as well as most music gigs). You do not have to decide this now, because even if you do, you'll probably change your mind.
I dreamed of being an architect my whole life. I'm the only 12-year-old kid who ever asked for drafting tools for Christmas. Halfway through an architecture degree at Texas A&M, however, I realized that while I liked to design things, I didn't much like the business of being an architect, and it didn't much like me. I switched to engineering and have been happy ever since, for the most part. But it meant that I nearly had to start over. Despite that, I approach engineering from a peculiarly architectural perspective that allows me to see structures and relationships in ways most engineers can't. So, my broad education served my later job training. It doesn't really work the other way around, though. Job training doesn't really serve education.
Another example: Let's say you want to be a computer programmer. Do you go to college and study four years to become a programmer? Many do, and find to their dismay that they are working for programmers who learned their craft in a year of night school at ITT Technical Institute. But what happens when the software business collapses and the programmers are out of work? The guys who have the college degree and the broad thinking skills and knowledge that goes with a good education can do lots of things, while the ITT graduates are back in night school having to learn some other trade, while they try to survive on minimum-wage day jobs. I know lots of programmers here in the Internet World Capitol who aren't programming at the moment, and many have had to move elsewhere to start new jobs. They are making less in many cases, but none are down in the fast-food category, and they are feeding their families.
Again: If you just want to train for a specific job, seek specific training for that job and don't pretend to get an education. If you want an education, study what interests you couple with what will give you the broadest view of the world, and then later on decide on a career and train for it. It's a slower way to get farther ahead.
Rick "who just had this discussion with his niece and her mother" Denney