Music Major or ROTC?

Student Lounge College Life
1

<p>I'm gonna put this here and in Music Majors, see if I can get a few different opinions.</p>

<p>At the moment, I'm torn between applying for AFROTC or applying as a music major - percussion performance, specifically. If you've seen any other threads I've posted (a lot, sorry :p) my top schools are still CU-Boulder, with LSU and CSU a bit behind that.</p>

<p>So on one hand, there's majoring in music. I love music, and while I'm not planning to pursue a career in it, I think I'd very much enjoy having a few years in college of pure music - drum corps, college marching band, music major. The downside, of course, is we'd have to come up with the money. I'd need to find about $10,000 from loans and scholarships (for CU-Boulder) to pay for it. Probably doable, but still expensive. Also, I'm not planning to have a career in music, and there aren't really many jobs anyways. I'd have to find a way to pay for graduate school as well, to study something probably in the STEM area. So basically, pros - I get to study music and do what I really want to for a few years. Cons - money, options when I graduate.</p>

<p>On the other hand, I could apply for an ROTC scholarship. If I get in, I could potentially get a large chunk of my college money taken out. The issue is I couldn't major in music, and I'd have to skip a year of marching corps (hopefully some of you music people will understand where I'm coming from there). I'd probably either do a Japanese major or maybe Engineering, depending how much I like my AP Phys class this year. Assuming I got through the program, I'd get a decent monthly pay while I was in college and I'd have a job once I graduated. So pros - cheaper school, job when I graduate. Cons - I couldn't do what I really want to with music.</p>

<p>Basically, I'm weighing studying what I really want to study during my undergrad years, or studying something that might be a little less appealing, but more relevant to what I'd be doing after I graduate. I mean, on the surface it seems like I should just plan for my future and apply to ROTC. I also don't want to give up the experience I'd have being a music major to do that, though. Thoughts?</p>

2

<p>If you’re not planning to have a career in it and you are going to try and get a STEM job, don’t even bother with music. How the heck are you going to get a STEM job with a music major? Or even get into grad school for a STEM major? Well, what you could do is DOUBLE major. I know a girl who double majored in Math & Music, 4.0’d all undergrad, and got into all her math graduate schools. </p>

<p>You don’t have to join ROTC.</p>

3

<p>I was hoping to do a minor, and then get into grad school for that minor. Double
major could work too, though. To be perfectly honest, I haven’t done any research on whether or not you need a major in an area to study that in grad school. </p>

<p>Have to? No. Would it make my financial life far, far easier? Yes.</p>

4

<p>Honestly, my friend is in the air force as an officer right now and is doing pilot training for the second time in Oklahoma. He is making $45K. Not an ideal salary for me because I plan to have kids in the near future, but he is content with it. It made his college career simple because he majored in Sociology for easy grades and he wanted to be a pilot ever since we were kids, so he definitely got those scholarships and didn’t really pay anything for college (he went to an extremely cheap university). I’d say he loves what he is doing, so you would have to think about if you’d love being in the military. </p>

<p>You could get disqualified from joining if you have a history of asthma. </p>

<p>I would not say simply having a minor is sufficient enough. Just because I am a math major doesn’t mean I am prepared for physics graduate school. As part of my minor I only have to take 3 upper-divison classes out of like 15-20 that are offered that are extremely important to the physics GRE (important for admissions in this program). If by the odd chance you are admitted, you would have to take courses that make up for your deficiencies before you even actually start the grad program.</p>

<p>Honestly, it is going to be a little hard to go from Music undergrad - > Chemistry grad school.</p>

<p>Also, engineering is not for the faint of heart. Many many intend to be an engineer and dropout. There’s a series of weed-out classes that determine if you’re good enough or not. I think the limit on my school is that after you’ve taken the class twice and failed both times, you are kicked out of the engineering program. There’s a high failure rate. It is not just physics but it is also chemistry, computer science, physics, math, etc. all rolled up into one. If you don’t like hands on, well that sucks.</p>

5

<p>Have you checked out the required curriculum for music majors? Being in marching band/drum corp is not going to cut it.</p>

<p>You could use the opportunity to be in marching band/drum corp as a criteria for selecting the colleges you apply to, and major in anything you want to. Generally you don’t need to be a music major to participate in those activities.</p>