School, Again

[smoothmoniker]

Well, I'm going back to school.

Why, you ask? Because academia sucks, that's why.

No matter how much work I do, no matter how many albums or tours or whatever I play on, I will never be able to advance beyond my current rank as Assistant Professor unless I have the letters behind my name.

Rather than take the long, legitimate road (getting a doctorate of composition from USC, or somewhere similar) I'm taking the shortcut. I'm getting a Masters of Music in Commercial Music from a local state school, which basically means I show up, taking some classes that I could probably teach instead, play some jazz standards at a few recitals, and get my ink.

In the academic world, the phrase that matters is "Terminal Degree", meaning the highest degree available in a specific field. There's no such thing as a doctorate in commercial music, so in my field the MM will count just as much as a PhD would. Instead of 6 years of hard work, I'll be done in 16 months.

There is one thing I'm actually looking forward to. Professors never get to do anything like "student teaching", where you observe someone else's classroom and learn from their experience. Getting to be a student and watch how another prof teaches these concepts will be helpful, I think.

Anyway. I'm a pretty much "meh" about the whole thing. It will be nice to have the ink, and to move up the ranks. The higher you go in academia, the more you make and the less you have to actually do. At the very pinnacle are the guys making $120k/year and teaching one class. That's the goal!