This is what is wrong with the education system today...

[Randy]

Yeah, I mis-spoke there. I agree it's been a constant struggle, and Clinton was by no means the start of it. It's just that the acceleration of this three-tiered system has really increased since the introduction of charter schools, TIFF districts, and a host of measures that have been used since the mid-1990s. This was during Clinton's watch, and many of the measures were introduced by his administration.

Sorry for bringing this off-topic.

[tubetapexfmr]

I can give you a prime example of how useless most audio degrees are. I had a friend that went to the University of North Carolina at Asheville. He took 5 years to graduate and I assumed he had learned enough basic skills to run a session. He had bought a new computer and interface during his senior year to record his band and all seemed to be going smoothly from what he was telling me. One day I finally made it over to his house to check out his new rig and he asked me to look at a problem he was having recording. He said that he was having stuttering and dropouts so I checked out his setup. What I found was shocking for a 'graduate' of a modern digital based audio program.

First of all he never bothered to buy a record drive. He was recording to the documents folder of his boot drive. His 80GB hard drive at this point was also 98+% full. Bam! there is your stuttering problem right there. As I tried to explain the need for a separate hard drive he didn't even know you could get another one and then he complained about how much it would cost to install. I was dumfounded. This was a new G4 MDD tower and really it couldn't be easier to install a new HDD. It turns out he had never even opened a computer in 5 years at school learning how to be an engineer! He never had a to take a computer science class or was even made aware of any of the hardware needs of even the most basic home studio. Amazing.

Now, maybe you think computer knowledge isn't necessary for a bachelors degree, but here is where it gets even better. Once I get his recordings up and running on a second record drive I notice that all his levels are blasted to shit. His waveforms are clipped like crazy and just sounding awful. His interface had some kind of limiter in it that prevented actual digital clips, but his recordings were utterly useless because of blasting this built in limiter. And its not like he was recording the worlds loudest band, it was a jazz trio with clean guitar and brushes for goodness sake! I look at him and ask why his gain staging is so fucked up and he says to me, "gain staging?" What's that? I thought he was kidding, but unfortunately he wasn't. Talk about a ripoff. I would love to be a fly on the wall in his classes at UNC-A and see exactly what they were taught and tested on.

If I were teaching a digital audio recording class: day one would be all computer hardware nuts and bolts, day two would be gain staging, and day three would be about making coffee and cleaning toilets. By the end of week 1 we'd be ahead of all UNC-A graduates and have a much clearer view of what this profession is really all about. My advice? Stay OUT of school. Learn on your own with cheap gear, message boards, and books. For what even 1 year of a state school costs, you could have enough gear to start your own home studio. Then all you need are musicians. Record them for free until you get a hang of it. Upgrade your gear and knowledge as you find their limitations and get as much hands-on experience as you can. By the time 4-5 years have passed doing this you will be light years beyond those fools going to school.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

damn. kind of crazy that people going to school for this shit don't even learn rudimentary stuff that is just NOT THAT DIFFICULT to figure out on your own.

[cgarges]

I had a friend that went to the University of North Carolina at Asheville.

My point entirely. There are three schools worth looking at for any type of music degree in North Carolina. UNCA is not one of them. And in the grand scheme of things, those three shouldn't be top choices for anyone considering a career in music. I applied to two schools-- my top choice and the best school in NC, with the plan that if I didn't make my top choice, I would use my first year of school in NC to figure out whatever I needed to do to qualify for a transfer to my top choice. Fortunately, I didn't have to deal with that.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[dsw]

the old cliche applies: "those who can't do, teach."

[cgarges]

the old cliche applies: "those who can't do, teach."

I think that cliche is utter bullshit.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[lutopia]

Don't get an MBA unless you want to run a decent sized company or (worse) work for a consulting firm and misinform people on what they should do, based on the same lack of real world experience.

You simply will not get a return on your tuition. And you think the music field is oversaturated....

MBA is the new BA.

[joel hamilton]

the old cliche applies: "those who can't do, teach."

I think that cliche is utter bullshit.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

Agreed. The people that are the most secure in their skills, and truly have a passion for their chosen field seem to show up as teachers much more often than the ones who "failed out of their career" or whatever....

[Professor]

The MBA idea is because a master's in recording would be kind of a waste of time for me, and would only be meaningful in academia. While the MBA would be viewed as 'a master's degree' in academia, but would also open doors in I chose to return to the private sector and make some real money working in sales & marketing for a big manufacturer or something. I'd hate to give up recording, but I'd really like to earn real money.

But that's just my thoughts on potential futures - it's certainly not for everyone.
And indeed, like so many degrees now, it's about good enough to make you the manager of the local coffee shop instead of just a barista.


On the other hand, it's not just our field or some schools. One of my colleagues just returned from adjudicating a conference in L.A. She said that while talking to a teacher from a major university in L.A. and lamenting the utter laziness, disinterest and inneptitude of students she has encountered, the LA teacher explained that it was exactly the same at her school. The students are not motivated, interested, or capable. They go to college to go through the motions, put in the four years, and get out with the diploma the way people would slug through high school as an "expectation" in decades past.
I imagine that is as much what happened with the UNC-Ashville guy mentioned above. The teacher can pour out information, but if the heads are closed, it doesn't make it inside. Granted, the program may well be an utter shit-stain, especially if the guy made it out without even learning the term "gain-staging" and without ever having touched a commputer. I have visions of the school hiring either a local studio guy who recorded 80s hair bands only ever to tape, or maybe they had a clarinet teacher or something who was a home DIY guy, so he introduced an audio "curriculum". However it happened, it is as much the fault of the student for not wanting to learn as it is the fault of the program for not being able to teach.

Remember what we say, 'mixing cannot be taught, it can only be learned'.

* (Speaking of which, I dropped that line in a job application this morning and wanted to credit it to someone, maybe Massenburg, but I couldn't remember. Anybody know?)

-Jeremy

[kayagum]

On the other hand, it's not just our field or some schools. One of my colleagues just returned from adjudicating a conference in L.A. She said that while talking to a teacher from a major university in L.A. and lamenting the utter laziness, disinterest and inneptitude of students she has encountered, the LA teacher explained that it was exactly the same at her school. The students are not motivated, interested, or capable. They go to college to go through the motions, put in the four years, and get out with the diploma the way people would slug through high school as an "expectation" in decades past.

This upcoming recession should solve this problem. The herd needs to be thinned....

[LeedyGuy]

the old cliche applies: "those who can't do, teach."

I think that cliche is utter bullshit.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

Agreed. The people that are the most secure in their skills, and truly have a passion for their chosen field seem to show up as teachers much more often than the ones who "failed out of their career" or whatever....

I am a teacher and the joke that we all share at my middle school is "Those who can't teach, teach Gym."

[rant]
But really, the education system is screwed up from the get go. Bear with me. I have a friend who is a cop (I know, we all need cops, but if you've been to NJ, there's a cop every other mile on every road in the state pulling over speeders) who gets insane raises and makes ridiculous amounts of overtime (something like $125 an hour to be on the side of the road when a utility is working on a fucking pole). His salary has literally doubled over the past couple years and, at age 30, he is probably making 6 figures. Why is that fucked up you say? The general public doesn't get to VOTE on the police department's budget! They give themselves raises at an insane rate because no one can stop them! Secretaries with no education in the township building make more money than I do with my damn Masters degree in music education!

Now, what happens in schools? Well, in NJ school budgets are voted on by the rubes that make up the townspeople. We submit our budget proposal and people decide by voting (usually only about 3-5% of the town population goes to the polls, but everyone complains about taxes and the schools only make up a small part of the freakin property taxes anyway) whether or not they approve the budget and therefore the increase in property taxes. Of all the things that can be voted upon, it's fucking schools?! Not the guy who answers the phone in the water department for $115,000 a year?

Yeah yeah, the lesson is "be the water department guy" but shit, you can't get that job unless your mom is the secretary down the hall and needs someplace to put her troubled loser kid who will never move out of the town ever again so that she can keep an eye on him.
[/rant]

In higher education, something I have been looking into because I can't spend the next 25+ yrs figuring out ways to get teenagers to shut the fuck up, it's tough to get a real gig nowadays because you really need that PhD and I'm just not willing to do the work to get it. The masters has damn near killed me and it put my playing in the toilet. The problem there is that the Masters is basically not worth any more than a BA used to be 20 years ago. These days, everyone goes to college and almost everyone goes to grad school, so just like a BA is pretty useless sometimes, so is an MA. It can get me some adjunct work, which is a pretty good foot in the door sometimes, but that foot is totally in a meaningless door unless I want to get that PhD.

And I probably have learned way more from this messageboard than I could have in recording/audio school. I am missing some technical things sometimes that either might or might not make my recordings better. For example, I couldn't solder an end on a cable if my life depended on it. Shit, I couldn't solder together my fingers if I really had to. I'm also missing out on really using a board. I can't do that either. I don't know a damn thing about a cap, a capacitor or a triode. I have no idea what that stuff is, but I am dying to know. I am a typical source-mic-preamp-converter-computer home recordist who is really trying to learn more, but I'm missing that classroom element that I could learn it in. I am seriously thinking about what I have to do to get going in EE like community college courses or something like that.

Wait...would I even learn any of that in audio school?!

-Ken

[cgarges]

However it happened, it is as much the fault of the student for not wanting to learn as it is the fault of the program for not being able to teach.

While I totally agree with this, I also find it unacceptable that the program graduated him. Isn't the purpose of a degree that an accepted forum of academia deems the graduate prepared for a career?

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[LeedyGuy]

However it happened, it is as much the fault of the student for not wanting to learn as it is the fault of the program for not being able to teach.

While I totally agree with this, I also find it unacceptable that the program graduated him. Isn't the purpose of a degree that an accepted forum of academia deems the graduate prepared for a career?

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

This is an interesting question, and I think the answer is actually "no." I think that there are plenty of majors at colleges that are not geared towards preparing people for work. College exists sort of as if there is no "real world" out there. It's pure academia. Think about it for a little bit and it will make sense...

[cgarges]

Well, even if you forget the career prep part, I still think it's fraudulent to charge tuition to teach someone and then pass them regardless of whether or not they've learned what they're supposed to. That's just wrong. And colleges don't have to answer to "No Child Left Behind," so they shouldn't have the same concerns as public grade schools. Public schools are fucked-up enough.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[LeedyGuy]

Well, even if you forget the career prep part, I still think it's fraudulent to charge tuition to teach someone and then pass them regardless of whether or not they've learned what they're supposed to. That's just wrong. And colleges don't have to answer to "No Child Left Behind," so they shouldn't have the same concerns as public grade schools. Public schools are fucked-up enough.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

+1.

Truth be told, I probably shouldn't have graduated college with a degree in music! I knew a whole lot about music, but my private percussion teacher never really taught me to play mallets or to play all that well in any way at all. I learned it all on my own after I got out! I still play on a 9th grade level if I have to read mallet stuff. I can improvise all over it if you give me a lead sheet, but read Bach violin sonatas with 4 mallets like I should have learned to do? No way! Colleges don't have to answer to NCLB, but they must have to answer to something, right?