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English Lit, Chicks, Band and Party were my majors….

I done alright.

My music degree did not do anything except make me able to join the symphony and have a lesson business, plus free lance. But -- I could have done all that without a degree.

I was told, and this was way back, like in 1970, by a fellow who worked at IBM that I could get a job there as a programmer trainee because IBM had found out that musicians made good programmers. But that wasn't because I had a degree; it was because I was a violinist. (And later, haha, I did make a good programmer. As an engineer, and I couldn't have gotten that job without the EE degree.)

Mary Ann wrote: ↑Tue Mar 19, 2024 6:56 pm My music degree did not do anything except make me able to join the symphony and have a lesson business, plus free lance. But -- I could have done all that without a degree.

I was told, and this was way back, like in 1970, by a fellow who worked at IBM that I could get a job there as a programmer trainee because IBM had found out that musicians made good programmers. But that wasn't because I had a degree; it was because I was a violinist. (And later, haha, I did make a good programmer. As an engineer, and I couldn't have gotten that job without the EE degree.)

What she said.

Those were the days. I was hired out of Landscape Architecture, to work with the university's new computer. I found out they had heard of me, in the computer facility, because I'd been asking questions about things I found out about from places they hadn't thought to look. We had people with all kinds of degrees, or no degree at all. At this point we hadn't been using computer cards any more for several years, but I think everyone there had gotten into it it in that era, and it was still seen as an occupation fit only for people who couldn't function in the normal world.

The day when you could walk in to that place, and talk yourself into a job based on an apparent aptitude with no degree, I think that's many years in the past. The guy who really didn't have any college degree is still there, I think, in a position of well earned considerable responsibility, but there will be no more of that.

That doesn't mean, though, that no one out there hires people without Computer Engineering degrees. These days if you're a young person with a knack for that kind of thing, you're likely to get involved in one or more of the thousands of non-commercial projects going on, and I expect in some parts of the industry, good credentials from that kind of work can get you in the door more effectively than a 4 year degree. How stable that work can be, I don't know - the really big houses cycle people through on jobs that last a couple years, and the little operations tend to fold in a couple years or get bought out by the big guys, so it isn't like the old days when a wet behind the ears kid might get handed his IBM pocket protector and retire 30 years later from the same company. It's looking somewhat upside down - young people making big bucks, possibly looking forward to few prospects in later years, but that's just my guess from the outside.

I was subbing with the Memphis Symphony before I ever took my first college course. Looking back, I should have continued to pay for unaffiliated lessons out of my own pocket, also taken lessons from other connected teachers of other instruments (particularly those who hooked up people with gigs), played every gig that I possibly could (including all those lucrative - and tremendously educational - recording sessions that I played), continued to sub in the orchestra, worked all day/every day at construction, (after talking the courses and passing the tests) real estate sales, (or anything with flexible hours that paid pretty well), and practiced several hours every evening. Oh yeah, I probably should have bought some FedEx, Apple, and Microsoft stock . Particularly these days, the core bachelor degree courses (those which have nothing to do with students' majors, sponge away at least two years of valuable youth, and program/misinform the naive to be obedient citizens and believe what they are told by their rulers and their rulers' media) are toxic.

Hindsight might not be 20/20, but it's often better than foresight, even with cataracts. (Sort of along the same lines, has anyone else ever fantasized about the ideal year to have been born in the United States? I've always thought that 1937 would have been just about the best for a number of reasons, one of which being that one probably would have been done by now.)

When I was in high school, I took a few lessons from Tommy Johnson. I was only 15 and couldn't drive so my parents took me the 100 miles from Colton to Chatsworth, about as far west you could go in the San Fernando Valley and still be within the Los Angeles city limits. He spent one whole lesson lecturing me on why I should be a music education major instead of a tuba performance major. I ended up dropping out of school as a music education major and joined the Army. (Military service is probably the best job to have for a musician with better than average talents.) After serving honorably for seven years, I went back to college but went as a performance major. At this time, I actually had no interest in getting a music position upon graduation. I was thinking I would go to seminary and become a Christian missionary overseas. I ended up going to seminary, but as a church music major with tuba concentration (the program is no longer offered). I didn't become a missionary. I taught school (you don't need to be an education major in California to be a teacher). My overseas service was as a high school band director for a prep school in West Java, Indonesia (my first wife was from Central Java and this was the way our daughters would get to know their grandparents and other relatives there). In the long run, I hated teaching. I didn't retire from teaching. Playing is a better job if you can do it. I'm glad I got to teach in Indonesia and that's the extent of my pleasure of classroom teaching.

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