Marching band as a grad student?

Student Lounge College Life
1

Currently a freshman studying Comp Sci at Stony Brook University. I’m also in the Marching Band, which I guess is OK, except it’s young (only 10 years old) and compared to other bands, it’s more meh…

Anyway, the reason I came here was because of finances (it happened to be one of few schools that actually gave me scholarships, or any financial aid at all). I’ve heard of other schools, particularly the Big Ten, that I wish I considered (but didnt even apply to since I was busy just focusing on getting into college :frowning: ) that have much more superior marching bands, particularly UIUC, b/c they’re going to the Macy’s parade this year.

Anyway (again), my plan for now is just to stick it out at Stony Brook for now, since it’s actually affordable right now and makes sense financially. Depending on my situation, I might stay here for all four years, or maybe transfer if I can after two years or go to grad school if it makes sense. If I were to go somewhere else, I would definitely go B1G and look at Big Ten schools this time, since those are practically a band geek’s dream schools.

If, by a miracle, that actually does happen to me, do other marching bands (particularly in the Big Ten) even take grad students (I want to transfer, but with finances and my parents wanting me to focus on my bachelors, I doubt that’ll be happening)? I somehow popped upon the news story of a 50-something year-old being in Ohio State’s marching band, but I’m just curious about all the other bands in the Big Ten and elsewhere in FBS football if they have ever had grad students, or is it just Stony Brook and Notre Dame?

2

Looks like graduate students can participate in marching bands at a variety of institutions. I just put marching band grad student into Google and a bunch of schools came up.

3

That’s what I did lol, except none of the B1G schools happened to come up

4

As a parent:

Getting out of school debt free is more important than Marching Band (unless your goal is to be a Marching Band Director at a Big 10 school). Also, Marching Band may be important to you now, but may or may not be as much in the future, particularly if you go to grad school.

Generally transfers do not get the scholarships that freshmen get.

5

What about doing DCI/DCA over the summer? Excellent, high quality corps that have nothing to do with where you go to school

6

Except I don’t know even remotely how. I’m only a freshman, and in high school, I didn’t have a marching band and drums corps, DCI, DCA were barely even heard of back there

7

In theory, you can participate in marching band as a graduate student, in that it is technically possible for you to do so.

In practice, marching band takes up so much time that I don’t think any serious graduate student would participate in a Big 10 marching band. And you certainly shouldn’t select a graduate school on the basis of its marching band or athletic programs.