Unsure about Music Education

College Majors Music Major
21

I’m the mom of a bass vocalist, and I’m a teacher, so a couple of thoughts on both of your worries.

My S, although he’d been singing with the city’s children’s choir, etc., since he was young, didn’t decide that he really wanted to pursue music as a career until just into his junior year. Then, out of nowhere, he got slammed with a crazy migraine disorder that utterly debilitated him for months. Long story short, while he managed to get enough credits to be a senior this year, he couldn’t actively do anything toward music until about a year ago. Once he could, hit got very serious very quickly and still managed to put together a decent audition rep and got ‘yesses’ from several schools. He’ll be attending UNC School of the Arts in the fall. It’s not too late.

I’ll be closing out my 24th year in the classroom in about six weeks. I entered college as a pre-law student, majoring in economics. After two years, the best thing I learned is that law was so, so not how I wanted to spend my life. I’m not a dumb girl, and no, my parents weren’t thrilled when I switched to an elementary ed major, thus putting myself on the five-year plan, but nor were they surprised.

I’ve got a pretty good gig right now: I teach reading and math to identified-gifted fourth and fifth graders. I’ve also taught sixth and eighth grade language arts and done a number of years of plain ol’ fourth and fifth grades. I. Love. My. Job. The pay sucks, (I’m in the un-unionized South.) which is really what worried my parents, Still, I get up every day knowing I’m going to get to show the kids something pretty awesome and look forward to seeing what goofy, fun, brilliant things they’ll come up with. If your heart’s telling you to teach, you’re probably going to end up in the classroom. You may as well just jump on in and save yourself the extra tuition.

Arts jobs can be hard to come by, especially down here. On my faculty, there are 35 regular ed teachers and 1 music teacher, 1 art teacher… you get the idea. A way to hedge your bets is to minor in a high-demand field, like a science. Here, at least, if you already hold a license in one subject (let’s say music), you can sit the licensure exam (I think it’s changed its name again, but it used to be PRAXIS, back in the day it was NTE.) and pick up a license in that area too.

Good luck! Life’s too short to spend 40 years doing something you don’t love.

22

Son is a 2nd year public school music teacher. He and many of his friends have found full time jobs as music teachers. Others are off to grad school for performance, etc. Since music ed is a specialized degree, there are not as many candidates vying for the job of music teacher as there would be for elementary ed etc. In NY, the music certification is pre-k through 12 so there are still many options. One friend is a band, general music and chorus teacher for a rural school. When he went through student teaching, his supervisors said they were projecting more openings as the 55 plus teachers start to retire.

23

@MomFromMich, I’m sorry I didn’t check College Confidential over the weekend…and now decision day is over. I agree with @musicprnt that conventional wisdom is to study music education in the state where you want to teach.

My daughter decided to go out-of-state anyway. We visited many schools, but my daughter only auditioned at two schools, a private in-state school and a public out-of-state school. Great scholarship offered by both (because she was a National Merit Finalist), but much lower net cost to go out-of-state. She was also able to claim 19 additional AP credits that the private school wouldn’t grant. Out-of-state university is a MUCH better fit for her than the private in-state school in many ways (musically, academically, socially).

After 4 years, she’ll have a degree in education, a Spanish minor, a semester of Study Abroad in Mexico (to become a fluent speaker), & possibly graduate with Honors (if she can fit in the last 3 Honors courses she needs). She’s minoring in Spanish because she absolutely loves the language & literature. I hope being bilingual will open more doors for her during job search.

She wants to teach in Texas, so will use 5th year of full-tuition out-of-state scholarship to get certified in Kodaly method (a plus for some districts like Plano), work on Texas certification requirements, & possibly get a master’s degree in Music Theory.