<p>My son is doing great as a BM candidate (guitar performance) in his second year but he wants the ability to take more of a variety of courses than what is required for the BM the next two years. If he stays on the BM track, he will not have the room in his schedule to take the other courses. He is currently researching the BA in Music requirements at his school as several other of his classmates have also switched. What are the downsides of making this switch?</p>
<p>At DD’s school if you switched from BM to BA you lost your studio professor and were assigned one the handled the nonperformance majors with less lesson time. They also lost some priority to practice rooms and venues. One of her friends who did it wanted more theater in her courses so she could go into musical theater. She was very successful, kept up her music and is performing on Broadway now. Another friend ended up leaving his instrument for the most part, not practicing as much, not performing much. He was heading away from music last I heard. But that is an OK result, too, if that suits them better.</p>
<p>Virtually every school handles this differently, I would have him check with his teacher and/or advisor.</p>