Hi, I was admitted as a music major at Northeastern University for this fall, and I was wondering if anyone who is currently a music major would recommend/not recommend going to NEU for music. I mainly applied because of co-op and because I’m a guitarist who doesn’t want to exclusively study jazz/classical music, and I liked that many classes don’t seem to pigeon-hole hole you into those two genres.
But lately, I’ve been hearing some bad things about the music program, as far as co-ops being hard to get and the music facilities not being great. Is a lot of that true?
Also, does anyone have any experience with the joint certificate program at the New England Conservatory? I thought that it would be a good idea to focus more on contemporary music and business/technology at Northeastern and focus more on jazz/classical music and composition at NEC.
@ath001, do you know if, as an NEU student, you would be eligible to take classes at NEC, or maybe at another school? There is a lot of sharing of resources in the school-rich Boston area, and many of the music professors have students from multiple universities in their studios.
NEC and Northeastern are in a consortium. The certificate program you refer to is through NEC’s Continuing Education division. I would check out how it works: do you get to be in a studio? Is the program geared to careers like talent management and business, or is it performance-focused?
You could do this and take lessons from a professor at NEC, and it would not be through continuing ed.
What do you think of the performance opportunities at Northeastern? Have you attended a concert?
There is no BM at Northeastern, and only a minor in performance. The focus is on careers in things like business and technology. If you want performance, Northeastern would only work, it seems, if you managed to also take courses at NEC. This would mean careful scheduling to avoid conflicts and could be stressful. You would have to map out how many classes you could take at NEC for credit at NE. And NEC has a cohesive BM program: dipping in for, say, solfege, might not feel like you were getting the full benefit of NEC.
These are only questions. It sounds like you could make it work with NE and NEC in several ways.