What to do with a music ed degree???

[MartyNeilan]

"I don't know what I want to do when I grow up, I think I'll teach" I also know more than a few dozen more who were somehow or other talked into their collitch program....whether they were undecided, cajoled, encouraged, or brain-dead.

One of the unique things about most teaching programs is that they in fact DO prepare you to do a specific job. You are even provided with an "internship" = student teaching. The state requires you to take a number of standardized and essay tests called PraxisII - in the case of TN three. The credit requirements are among the highest, there are mountains of paperwork, checks, and other issues; in short a teaching degree is one of the most intensive undergrad degrees AND one of the few that does guide you down a specific career path vs. a "liberal arts" degree that gives you a little of everything and prepares you for nothing. My school graduated a large number of teachers but a small percentage of music teachers. Most of the "teachers" had jobs before they graduated; so it is not a case of just throwing bodies out there. I was amazed at one of the education career fairs that my university offered - schools from all the surrounding states begging our grads to teach there, yet not one single table had any music openings.

I have considered being a music teacher since the 80's, but was a johnny-come-lately to the field until the last few years, it is not a recent whim. I receive publications every month that tell of the need for music teachers, yet I do not see the jobs to back it up. I had literally applied for dozens of jobs coast to coast yet had few interviews and even fewer offers.
This was a well thought career choice that I temporarily regret.

I realize that when it comes to tuba I am "good but not good enough" and I am not one of the many to mortgage the rest of my life pursuing one of the few family-feeding playing jobs.

I have a "take no crap" personality. I am also very driven and like to produce results and not fluff. * I have seen many good and successful band directors possess the same trait. I just need to find a school where the inmates do not run the institution. Perhaps they are still out there, perhaps not.

We shall see what comes of it all.

P.S. I have applied for dozens of corporate training jobs around the country in the last two months - a good suggestion from some - but have yet to hear diddly on those. Mainly because they typically want a degree that has nothing to do with education and they want years of CT experience.

* This is also one of the same reasons I have not pursued church music fulltime. With only a few expections, most church music programs I have seen are laughably bad and really would prefer to stay that way except maybe for Easter and Christmas, maybe. The "slacker" minsters of music seem to do quite well financially; the driven ones usually bounce from job to job and ultimately leave the field.

[Alex C]

I haven't read all four pages of posts but my two cents worth is:

If you hated teaching, don't teach. If it was just a bad situation give it another try. You might consider working as an assistant at a successful program, that way you can see how it's done from the director's point of view.

If you are looking for something associated with music and out of teaching, look at music retail or instrument repair.

If you want to make money, it's hard to do in music. There are very few rich band directors. Few rich repairmen and some rich retailers.

Good news, with your degree and get an entry level job with a large corporation. If you do your part and are willing to learn, you will make progress. That doesn't sound particularly exciting but it can be. There is a lot of up$ide potential.

An R/TV major told me a story about his senior class. The guest speaker was a producer from a major studio. She told them that when she finished HS, she took a job as a gopher at the studio. She went from gopher, to script girl, to assistant producer to director to producer. She was 27 and everyone in the class left with the feeling that they had wasted four years waiting to get started.

Suggestions? Hospitals, health care, insurance, homeland security (TSA... join now, you can be a "security expert" for the government in six months), airports and many more.

Start thinking out of the box. Your opportunities are only limited by what's in your head.

[ai698]

Follow Up: Like I said, I taught 11 years in some bad situations. I tried to make the best of it and teach the best I could. There was only a couple of years where I looked foward to coming in to work. I enjoy teaching. I enjoy seeing a "not going to make it" 6th grade beginning trumpet player who I'm trying to convince to switch to euphonium or tuba because she can play 2nd line G only to become an alternate for All State (on trumpet) last year as a sophomore. My last band job (I taught Elementary General Music at my last job), the Middle School principal was, to be nice about it, an idiot. He got in my face a couple of times and lucky that he wasn't worth going to jail for. We didn't call him "Meathead" for nothing. That's what I don't like about teaching, dealing with very bad administrators who are more concerned that the teachers respect him and have no business dealing with parents and students in a school setting.

So Scooby Tuba is right on his three points (and about administrators ) and I'll add a fourth-

4. Make friends with the football coach. He'll more than likely become your boss one day.

Teaching isn't for everyone. There are way too many teachers who hate all aspects of teaching (including the small paycheck) but continue on. There are also some great teachers out there who don't get the recognition they deserve because they just teach, not play politics with the administration.

[MartyNeilan]

You are too good, too valuable to your family and the students you can reach, to waste your time whining to the Tubenet freak jury about this.

Thanks, I needed that!
You are right, and I sincerely apologize to all on the BBS for acting like a crybaby. Life happens.

Great advice from Scooby, TubaJoe, and a few others. I hope a few years from now others can view this thread and glean something from it.

Like they said in the 70's...
Keep On Truckin'!

[Captain Sousie]

I tell all new teachers the following:

1) Stay out of the teacher lounge. Stay out...

2) The principal is never your friend. Stay away...

3) Make friends with the custodians. Buy them donuts

AMEN! Especially #3. I'll add that the movie "Mr Holland's Opus" is the worst thing that happened to the music teaching profession. It gave an image of music teachers that is impossible for those starting out.

If you're really desperate, you can come to Las Vegas, NV. You can get a teaching job no matter what (barring severe legal proceedings), retirement is vested in 5 years, and the union is pretty good.

It really sucks, but it's a living.

Sou

[Captain Sousie]

To clarify, my wife and I love teaching, but we can't stand the inner-city mentality. We are both from a small town and are used to the attitudes of small towns, not big cities with the west-coast gang presence.

Sou

[Pippen]

I tell all new teachers the following:

1) Stay out of the teacher lounge. Stay out...

2) The principal is never your friend. Stay away...

3) Make friends with the custodians. Buy them donuts

Amen! I taught HS science and I used to drill this same message into my student teachers with one modification: make friends with the custodians, the secretaries, and the IMC lady because they could make your life miserable. On my last day of teaching before taking a leave I delivered goodies to all three groups because these can be really critical people in a building for a classroom teacher.

Even a lot of teachers who stay in their original job go through career crisis. I sure did about 4 years in. First I looked into engineering because it paid a lot more plus I was struggling with the self esteem thing (I *could* have had a higher paying more respectable career). Then I started making plans to go back for music ed because I thought I would have enjoyed it more than my chosen field.

After weighing all the options over a few years time I decided to stay put and during that time the job didn't change one iota but I sure did. I adjusted my expectations and my tolerance level improved so I could handle all the baloney that goes along with teaching in the public school. I finished my master's degree so I at least I felt one step up from poor. My teaching skills improved as did my ability to handle the kids, parents, & administration. And to my surprise I discovered that my school was really pretty good and that I actually liked teaching science after all. Things went along in that mode until I quit to stay home with my kids.

Career crisis is never fun in any field but at least mine turned out to be a whole lot shorter and cheaper than my best friends. After graduating with a degree in music decided he wanted to go to med school.

[The Impaler]

Sorry to row against the stream here, but reading this thread for the last day or two has been, to say the least, extremely depressing. To all you young tube-netters out there thinking about the possibility of a career in education some day: work hard, be a great musician, and share your craft with the next generation of musicians, please!!!

To my mind, there is nothing more satisfactory than teaching music. I love to play, practice, and everything to do with me alone working on becoming a better musician: it's part of the whole process. But seriously, what good is all that work if I'm not helping others out with it? Music should not be a selfish artform.

Again, I apologize for raking this all up, but I spent three years as a band director, working my tail off (12-14 hours a day, maybe one or two free weekends a month) and I loved it. I found music education as a career to be one of the most rewarding things I've ever done. And that's why I still do it, albeit at the university level. Please don't discourage one another from teaching music, as terrible as your particular experience might have been. We've all had bad bosses, bad students, bad whatever. Bottom line: we make it what we want it to be.

In today's athletic-driven/standardized-testing educational world, how can we expect the government to support music education when we are not supporting it???

[LoyalTubist]

Do you know that your chances are better to be a first-string NFL quarterback than to get a substantial tuba job? Tommy Johnson told me that. I studied with him for about three lessons in high school. What a dose of reality!

[windshieldbug]

Do you know that your chances are better to be a first-string NFL quarterback than to get a substantial tuba job?

Then again, there are a more than a few of those boneheads, and somebody's gotta do it... somebody else, if you ain't willing to put in the time, effort, and commitment...

[tubatooter1940]

I was an engineering student who hated math so I asked my advisor about switching to music as a major. He told me I would have to get a doctorate in music to have job security and not get rolled out of my job by the next PHD. to apply at my school. I then asked him about a degree in music performance. He told me if I could play now I should save the money and go out and play. I did. I dropped out of college as soon as my G.I. bill ran out and played brass and guitars in bars for 25 years.
My wife was a printer for a union newspaper and we made almost the same income over the 25 year period.
With no student loans to pay back we are glad I chose to remain ignorant.

[Pippen]

I was starting to get quite worried there I'll just hope that there is always work for the persistent.

Not to worry-go for it! Just like any profession, you will find people who land in their first job and love it, those who landed in dismal situations and need to move on, those who weren't well suited to their chosen profession, as well as some people who are never satisfied with any job/profession they are in.

I wound up loving teaching although I wouldn't have been able to say that emphatically at the end of my first year. Do what you really want to do, work to be your best, and make your mind up in advance to be flexible those first year and the chances of having a good fit will be a lot better.

[windshieldbug]

BLOKE IS A S. O. B..........

Alright! Who let the viola player in!?

[anonymous4]

According to the National Center for Education Statistics (2001), students who select education as their major have the third-lowest SAT scores of 18 majors listed. When education majors graduate and take the LSAT for admission to law school, or the GRE for admittance to graduate school, they score lower than any other major.

That's because they make us take so many pointless classes. While everybody else out there is taking classes that might help them on the GRE or LSAT, we're sitting in a circle learning how to sing songs to a kindergarten class. Sorry, "pointless" is the wrong word, because those classes do have value, just not for anything other than teaching music.

As for the SAT thing.....well if Music Ed Majors starting college were smart, they'd pick another major.