<p>Hi all. I am 38 years old and am employed as a bilingual elementary school teacher. When I was in my early 20's, I was offered a partial scholarship to study voice at Roosevelt University in Chicago. I had some health issues and was unable to attend. Then life happened. I got busy with other things, got married...</p>
<p>So now it's today. Since that time I've kind of been haunted by the fact that I didn't pursue my dream. But I've always just pushed it to the back of my mind thinking "Well, what's done is done." </p>
<p>Today I'm wondering if I could ever recapture that dream. I would need to get an undergraduate degree in voice. As far as I can tell, all the programs only offer classes during the day, with some performances at night. How can I possibly follow my dreams?</p>
<p>I believe that it’s never too late to follow your dream if you’re willing to make a few sacrifices and/or think outside the box. Here’s to hoping some of the older CC members are able to give you a hand in exactly how to accomplish this. Best of luck!</p>
<p>I guess the question is, why do you want a degree in music? If all you want to be happy is the piece of paper saying you got the degree, that should be achievable. If you are actually thinking of a career in music, I’m not so sure that’s a good idea, and a BMus brings absolutely no guarantee of getting a job.</p>
<p>Questions you should ask yourself:
Is your husband willing/able to support you both while you take time off work?
Do you want the degree for self-satisfaction, or are you seeing it as a pathway to a new job?
Could you sing with a choir/amateur opera company to get you back into music without throwing away your current career?
Have you had voice lessons in the last 20 years? If not, you should go and find an experienced teacher and talk to them about your current level and your thoughts of getting a music degree.
How would you feel spending 4 years with teenager classmates? (You might be fine with this, or it might be an alienating experience…)</p>
<p>You already have an education degree, and I’m wondering if you could go to grad school to become certified to teach music. Going on to get additional certifications is not that unusual. Would that be enough for you?</p>
<p>Working with a voice teacher, even outside of college, might give you what you want, if you just wish to develop your voice more. Depending upon where you live, perhaps you could join a symphony chorus or church choir.</p>
<p>Some colleges do have cut-off ages for music admits (especially undergrad). You’d have to do some research there. I know voices take longer to mature, but I don’t know where the “sweet spot” is, age wise, so I don’t know if 38 is considered past prime. I do think it might not be seen favorably. But many university teachers take on private students as well, and you might get what you want that way.</p>
<p>I think it depends on what you are heading for. If you are dreaming of getting a music degree and actually becoming a performer, making a living at it, I suspect it would be too late. I don’t know a great deal about singing, but singers take a lot of years of practice and work to get to a top level, it doesn’t just happen (note, I am assuming classical singing/opera here, not pop or jazz). Singers mature later and if you look at opera for example singers seem to hit their peak on the other side of 30 in my experience after many years of intense training. Plus I have to wonder how 38 year old vocal chords and such would respond to that kind of training, after years of not really using them (to sing). </p>
<p>On the other hand, that doesn’t mean you can’t experience music. Teaching may be a route for you to enjoy music, since you already are teaching, could you possibly get training in teaching music and teach it? More importantly, there is nothing stopping you from singing for the joy of it, you can take private lessons from music teachers, you can get your voice in shape and find ways to sing. You might even be able to do it professionally to a certain extent, sing at weddings and such, or maybe join a local choral group (or form one), there are several in the northern NJ area I live in that are really good. If the passion is there, there may be many paths to satisfy it, to share your gifts or talent with others. The people who found the top level amateur choral groups and such often are people who for whatever reason couldn’t/didn’t go into music professionally and ended up still being able to do music.</p>