Hello everybody, hope y’all’s morning is going well!
I’ve been thinking about majors for quite a while now and it’s getting increasingly more difficult to decide between what is right and what I should do. I got accepted into UT Austin recently and am really set on going to school there. (I’m still applying to other schools though).
I haven’t auditioned on percussion yet so the Butler School of Music is still a tossup. I have really strong material prepared and I’m thinking positively about it. My second choice major is Computer Science entry level and I haven’t been admitted into the College of Natural Sciences. I’m way more unsure about getting into this one. I’ll give my test scores, gpa, etc. below.
SAT - 1760
Reading - 550
Math - 710
Writing - 500
ACT - 27
English - 25
Math - 33
Reading - 24
Science - 26
English/Writing - 22
GPA - 4.0 and 101.81618
Rank - 5/235
As you can see, I love math and enjoy it but don’t like standardized tests because I’m bad at them 
Anyway, I have a passion for music and technology. At UT, I don’t know how pragmatic participating in both subject areas is because what I do know is both the music and computer science majors require rigorous course loads. I also know that if I pursued music, I could not get a career later in computer science but if I were to pick CS then I’d be able to play music as well as have a job in that field. I know life’s not about money but, unfortunately, money is required to live and survive and I want to live comfortably too. My percussion instructor enjoys teaching and helping me with my repertoire and my composition teacher enjoys what I write. My mathematics teacher told me I needed to do something with mathematics in my life. I don’t want to betray one for the other but ultimately I want to live happy and with no regrets.
What I would like to know and get help on is how to make this decision? What mindset do I put myself in to determine this?
Thanks!
P.S. I place so much importance and value on hard work for anything that you do and I would like to say that whatever I end up doing, I will work incredibly hard to do well at it because that is my standard.
Well, I think it depends on what you want to do - now, and for a living. Are you interested in a career as a performing musician? I’m a huge champion of your major not necessarily needing to be tied directly a specific career, but college is career prep at least a bit. And I will say that the earning potential of your major is much more important to you once you hit your mid-to-late 20s and are looking for a serious career and thinking about the things you want to do in life. That said, nothing that you do now can ensure that you will live a happy life with no regrets. You could major in music and 10 years from now wish that you’d majored in CS and joined that startup that your best friend from college just sold for $12 billion. Or you could major in CS and 10 years from now wish you had at least tried for a career as a professional musician because you’re bored out of your skull. Who knows?
You can also change careers - a friend of mine during my postdoc actually had a first career as a semi-professional musician before going back to school and studying psychology. Your goal shouldn’t be future-proofing yourself so much as it should be pursuing something that you know will make you happy and allow you to support yourself.
I don’t think it’s true that if you pursued music you couldn’t get a career later in CS - there are lots of people who went to work in software development and other CS fields without a major in CS - but I do think it’s easier if you have majored in CS. Furthermore, as you said, nobody cares whether you majored in music in college; they care that you have the skills as a percussionist to play in their ensemble.
Don’t worry about “betraying” your teachers. They are giving you advice on the basis of your performance in their class without knowing how good or passionate you are about anything else; they’re also a biased source because they prefer their field to others and would want you to enter their own field. Ultimately, they would want you to be happy selecting something that you like and that would allow you to be successful. (Your percussion teacher probably also knows the difficulty of making a living as a professional musician these days.)