Taking a Break

[Kevin_Iaquinto]

I was all set to go to the University of Redlands for tuba performance, but for some reason I just fell out of love with the tuba. I didn't enjoy playing as much anymore and it felt like a chore, practicing for my senior recital. I kept on chugging along and I went to the idyllwild summer orchestra again, but nothing changed. I talked with some of my teachers and with my family and friends and I decided to not go to Redlands and I was going to take a year off and figure out what I wanted to do.

I got hired at wal-mart for the electronics department a little while ago and just recently I was promoted to a Technical Associate. I repair self checkout machines, item scanners, handhelds, cash registers, etc... I love my job and I get so much joy out of fixing electronics. I took about 2 months off from playing the tuba and I just started playing again about 2 weeks ago.

I like playing the tuba again, in short bursts. I play maybe 3 times a week for about 30 minutes a session. I've always been passionate about electronics, building computers is my favorite hobby. I love fixing things and having people come to me for help with electronics. I'm looking into getting certified/an associates degree, but for now I'm really happy where I am. A break from the tuba was exactly what I needed.

[largobone]

Remember, you can still the play the tuba on the side, maybe find a local municipal band that will allow you to play something once or twice a week to keep you interested. Hopefully something like that will allow you to continue enjoying the tuba but not get burned out all the time. Whatever happens, I hope it's for the best!

[bort]

Breaks are good, but you should still go to a college.

[bort]

I'm just saying, the next step down from "going to college for tuba performance" doesn't seem to be "not going to college at all."

I know an awful lot of music performance majors who ended up doing nothing at all with that degree... but benefited greatly from going to college. Not going to argue this any further, but I say "go to college."

[Kevin_Iaquinto]

Luckily for Kevin, he seems smart enough to not use the internet, and especially not TubeNet, as his source of guiding information.

[WC8KCY]

...and I continue to say, "Think long and hard before going to college. The length of your life is limited, during your youth opportunities are nearly limitless whereas college experiences are limited (tend to be very inside-the-box-ish), mountainous debt makes life less pleasant, and many jobs not requiring any sort of degree can be more rewarding (both in a sense of accomplishment and monetarily) than many jobs related to being in possession of a degree. Finally, the world view expressed by the vast majority of colleges' employees is - to say the least - myopic."

Hear, hear!

Seldom mentioned regarding the cost of college: Money NOT earned while you're pursuing a degree. That makes the actual cost of college far more costly than many people realize. Back in my 20's, I had to work full-time while pursuing my undergraduate degree; to continue on to graduate studies would've meant forgoing $22K a year in income, plus health insurance benefits, and lost retirement income.

For me, the return-on-investment on finishing my degree just wasn't (and isn't) there.

[swillafew]

"Tuba performance" is just a little ahead of "Viola da Gamba".

[kontrabass]

Sounds like you've found something you love that is always in demand in our society. That's a rare combination. The energy and excitement in your voice when you talk about repairing electronics is evident.

I don't know if you're asking for advice here or trying assuage your guilt for stepping off The Path of Tuba Success (TM). I feel more like congratulating you on getting on the Path of Electronic Repair Success and Happiness.

[timothy42b]

Breaks are good, but you should still go to a college.

Well...............but ask yourself why first.

And get to a library and read Shopcraft as Soulcraft. Everybody should read that. Buy it if you can't find it locally, it's that important.
https://www.amazon.com/Shop-Class-Soulc ... 0143117467" target="_blank
It's about choices for work and what satisfies people, and it isn't always college.

One thing the author points out is that a job crafting spreadsheets can be done online from Asia cheaper, but a job repairing a toilet or electronic cash registers requires a person on site.

[Three Valves]

Fixing the Shitter will never be outsourced and no one will ever lose interest in your talent!!

[MaryAnn]

I did what you did but it took me a lot longer. After the degree in music, after finding I hated playing in a violin section in an orchestra, after finding I was bored to tears giving lessons, I went back and got my BSEE. THEN I was able, later, to have the kind of fun I had lost being a professional. You done good, OP. We all have talents that can lie dormant or be used. We have to find the right mix for us.

[sloan]

Other than degrees that lead to specific certifications, is "college" (particularly with all of the nonsense courses now either required or available) becoming society's "Windows 95" ?

no

[MartyNeilan]

I recently bought/rehabbed a couple of trailers located down the road from each other.
one - typical 25-year-old l-o-n-g skinny one with vertical aluminum siding with a cypress wood pattern printed on it
the other - a vinyl-sided double-wide

Which one has a better low C?

[vandoeduardo]

+1 on go to what makes you happy...
I'm kinda in the reverse position...

I have to work with IT, to provide for my family, but heart relies on tuba...

Maybe someday things might change...

[Rick Denney]

Good grief, Joe. You are dredging up some old debates we had on Tubenet, even trying to draw the intrepid Dr. Sloan back into the fray. If there's one thing we have learned, it's that our population can't keep up on the world stage in professions that actually do require learning beyond what one can read on the Internet, in addition to the perspective and maturity to be a responsible adult in a fallen world. But we've lost what colleges are supposed to do in the attempt to make them what they should not be, which are trade schools.

So, am I agreeing with you? Yes, in part, and no, in part. The yes part is that in trying to make colleges into trade schools, we have lost the kind of trade training we once excelled at. Now, if one wants to be that plumber, one has to go to a community college for a couple of years, which has replaced the apprentice programs of the past that would have taught that person to be a plumber while he or she was actually doing plumbing. It's politically expedient to give people college degrees when what they really have earned (which is plenty worthy and honest enough) are trade-school diplomas.

Here's the "no" part. Colleges should not be concerned with income potential. They should be less concerned with skills and more concerned with the understanding of their profession and its role in the world that makes skills possible and useful. That's what education is supposed to provide, but, of course, the students have to actually want to learn it.

Funny, but the less collegy colleges have become, the harder it is to find those people who can do things in the three-dimensional world, as you have described it in the past. Your focus on valuing education solely in terms of income potential is now widespread, and it is precisely the reason colleges are in their current trend. College is the new trade school, which you seem to want it to be, but we lack trade skills more than ever. Why do you suppose that is? I suspect it's because being trained in skills just isn't the same thing as being educated, and in trying to turn the latter into the former, we've ended up with neither. Trade school is not a good place to train one's hands and eyes, perhaps.

This is a much bigger and much different issue than someone discovering that, in fact, he really doesn't want to live the life of a working musician, and would rather live a different life. I wish him well and hope that he achieves not only happiness but also his potential.

I do not understand the notion of lost income. I made probably as much money while attending college as I would have had I continued my previous grocery-store job, and when I was earning my graduate degree, I was already working full time in my profession. The same was true of most of my friends and colleagues, too.

And perhaps even more importantly many parents have forgotten that the prime directive of parenthood is to convert children into responsible adults, whatever they then decide to do with their lives. Decisions about college would be a lot easier if made by people who have been taught (coerced?) to behave like adults at least most of the time.

Even in engineering, we hear complaints from employers (engineering companies, who should know better) that students aren't trained. Well, that's the job of those employers, not of colleges. Colleges should educate as the basis for training. The difference between training and education is easy to explain: If your teenage child arrives home talking about the sex education class he or she is attending, you might not like it but what are you gonna do? If your teenage child arrives home talking about being enrolled in sex training, you will have a different reaction. What I encounter with fresh graduates are those who cannot calculate anything without their software-loaded computer. And even without needing calculations, they have developed no intuition about how stuff works, and that intuition comes in larger measure than we thought, perhaps, from having made those laborious calculations themselves. Or, they believe that the ability to calculate stuff is too geeky and they believe they have a perspective on the value of calculation that is more important than making calculations. This is the height of hubris, in my view, and I wonder how they survived four semesters of calculus. I was rather hoping they might be people who could actually write the future of that software, instead of being a slave to it, once they had added some real-world training to their education. (By the way, I made a tidy extra income developing software in my profession back when I had about 10-20 years of experience--maybe even as much as I might have made fixing up and renting out a couple of mobile homes.) I've already given up on engineering graduates being able to string a dozen words together to make an expressive, complete sentence.

Rick "resisting the notion that college should be job-training for kiddies" Denney

[pittbassdaddy]

I've already given up on engineering graduates being able to string a dozen words together to make an expressive, complete sentence.

i r engineer.

If it pays the bills, any job that you enjoy is a good thing!

[Donn]

The need to offer career advice for someone you don't know leads to quite a lot of hand-waving generalities, I see.

[Kevin_Iaquinto]

Chiming back in here. My parents have been talking to me about higher education and my mom is convinced that I need a college degree to get anywhere in life. I'm just enjoying my job and really enjoying not having to sit in a classroom all day long. I want to advance in life, but I really don't want to shackle myself with student loan debt and end up with a degree in something that I might not like/be able to use.

I've thought about going into a trade before, being an electrician has always sounded interesting to me. I have also thought about instrument repair too. Not sure where I'm headed, but I like where I am right now.

I enjoy reading the banter that goes on in this thread.
Thanks, Kevin.

[Three Valves]

Banter??

What you are reading is a metaphysical struggle for your soul!!

[Kevin_Iaquinto]

Your mother is basing her advise on what was true when she was growing up in America, and she only wants the best for you.
Things are changing very fast.
Just as another example (sure...elecrician, but...) welding is one of the highest-paying blue collar jobs there is, and there is a tremendous shortage of them in America.
If you are good with your hands and good with attention to detail...and good with not cutting corners...and good with following procedural and safety rules, I'd bet you could become a very highly in-demand welder...who (unlike many professional tuba players and band directors) could afford most any tuba you would like to own.

I'm sure you've read enough to know that there are many boards of education (as well as orchestra boards of directors) who think very little of their teachers/musicians.

https://www.google.com/search?q=welder+ ... 8&oe=utf-8

Many welding jobs only pay about what teachers are paid, but - with very talented welders, six figures is not terribly uncommon...
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-140-000 ... 1420659586

As for college teaching jobs, the operative words today are "string-along-for-three-years-and-don't-award-tenure" and "adjunct"...this while (again) tuition continues to skyrocket, as "tuition loan money" is low-hanging fruit (for suckers). When you investigate top university administrators' salaries and check out the luxurious new facilities (student unions that rival the most upscale malls), stadiums, and arenas, you know where all that Pell money is going (not to faculty).

My spanish teacher, a really "old fashioned" guy, spoke a lot about welding and about how certain people weren't right for a college education, I didn't think much of it back then, but it makes a lot of sense. He wasn't too keen on me going into music anyways. I think one of his sons was an underwater welder. Spoke very highly about him.