SWISHER
Main part of my blog very short today so my gripe can take up most of the space. Sports: Yankees, Nice Swisher: this team simply needed a crazy lunatic on the bench or playing. This guy is nuts. Talk about relaxing the team atmosphere. All hail Cap'n Nick.
ME AND MARLEY
I hate Jennifer Aniston. Don't even like Owen Wilson that much. But never in a film have I seen the life and death of a pet handled so nicely. Yes, my daughter cried her eyes about but the movie gave me a chance to explain that this is the way pets need to go sometimes and it is not painful for them. I put the dog dying seen right up there with Ricky Schroeder crying his eyes out at the end of "The Champ".
MUSIC
I'm not reviewing music today. This is in support of my comment on my facebook page that says "I don't want to talk about music...I do it every day for a living". Don't worry. I'll get back to it but since I have to spend Easter Sunday studying orchestral scores I don't want to talk about now, so there.
GRIPE OF THE DAY
This will be part of a 10 part series on problems with Higher Education. I'm in higher ed and have a job in higher ed. I am thankful for my job. That does not excuse the American university system from handing out oodles and oodles of doctorates when there are simply no jobs to be had in the profession. For every one university conducting position that openings, over 100 application are received. There are about 3-4 openings per year. 25-50 percent of the individuals applying have or are in the process of completing a doctorate. This is simply insanity. I will go as far as calling it the GREAT AMERICAN HIGHER EDUCATION SCAM. I don't know if these graduate dollars are needed to support faculty salaries or undergrad programs. Quite frankly, I think it is the fact that universities became so competitive with each other over the past 40 years - always trying to offer more and more....always trying to one up the next guy. Now your typical student graduating with a doctorate in oh....say music.....can struggle with a few community college gigs for 5-10 years..maybe teach privately on the side...probably even hold a part time job outside of music. I have numerous friends with doctorates in the arts and very, very few with full time steady jobs that include benefits. It's really a shame. I will go so far as to say that any university offering a doctorate in music should not have more than one doctoral student at a time in each major area. Someday someone is going to explain to me why the all powerful University of Indiana Conducting program has as many as 8 master's students in conducting and multiple doctoral students in conducting. Really? I mean, really? Are they all going to get a conducting job one day? I challenge that university to personally mail me the names of their past 30 graduates and the conducting positions that actually hold. Guarantee not more than 3 have a steady conducting job. I call on American Universities to stop handing out doctorates and even master's degrees like candy on Trick or Treat night. Too many take conducting and classical music performance as "fun". We are a cultural museum. We must conduct, perform and transmit works at the highest level and those that choose to do this must be egoless servants of composers and their great works. It's turned into a fucking circus and it only diminishes the value of those who are at the top of their game.
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I don't think universities should be handing them out, but I think if someone wants to earn a doctorate in a particular field, they should go for it. I knew from the time I started my undergraduate degree that the only way to get the job I wanted was to get a doctorate. And even then, I knew that it might never work out for me.
ReplyDeleteI make sure that all my students know the odds. At that point, it's up to them. It takes a lot of hard work and sometimes a lucky break. It's not unlike getting a role in a movie or a chance to play pro ball (just a lot less lucrative).
I also make sure that students know that their education isn't worthless, even if they wind up doing something completely different than they thought they would.
I'm glad that Eastman didn't have a one percussion doctoral student policy when I auditioned. I couldn't have gone to school there, I wouldn't have studied with some of the most amazing teachers of my life, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have my job (which I love and am thankful for every day).
Music (and all of the arts) are important whether or not they make your kid better at math, and a good education is valuable whether or not it gets you a better job. But, if you want a job in the arts, get a great education, practice your ass off, and never give up. It's your only hope.
Blake - great comments. "practice your ass off" is one of your key lines. Most people might understand what it meant to practice a lot or practice hard. I find few know what it means to practice your ass off - to ignore just being the best at your own school but trying to be the best there is. I'm in the same situation as you. I worked and worked and worked. Practiced all the time. I just think we have some universities simply giving out too many of these degrees or not telling their students up front how difficult it all is - and that's the key - just be up front with your students. Too many of them get quite a shock when they realize the very few job possibilities.
ReplyDeleteThanks.
John - you raise an interesting point. I guess it all depends on what you view the role of higher education to be. If the role of higher ed is to prepare people for jobs, then your point is well taken (If the universities only job was to look out for students and not to look out for itself) If the role of higher ed is just to educate in the classical sense, then you have no point. Since jobs are not the purpose of a classical higher education, then the lack of jobs for a graduate in a particular field does not constitute any kind of failure on the universities' part. I think there is also some merit to the university giving the student what they want (meaning: let them study what they want). Some students may just want to improve themselves....it may not be about a job for them... I know that when I got my MS, I just did it to get better at what I wanted to do. I could have had the teaching jobs I was going after (high school band director)without that. I just wanted to be more prepared to do it. Maybe there are doctoral students who pursue the degree just for the sake of higher learning. I think by the time they get there, they know what the job prospects are - and if they don't, it should be their responsibility to find out. Then they can do a cost / benefit analysis of their own personal situation to see if the doctorate is of benefit to them. I think it would be a shame if universities in any capacity were to limit the number of students in any field based on the assumption of how many jobs might be available. To make education just about jobs might be the biggest failure of education yet.
ReplyDeleteJohn
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy reading your blogs. Keep it up! Anyway, I'll comment on this one. While there will never be jobs for all doctoral students, there never should be. The reason all those doctoral students are there is to make the few at the top, the ones who get those full-time college gigs, really exceptional. Those people would not be at the place they are at if it weren't for the "critical" mass of doctoral students. A critical mass of students push everyone. While we think that it's the professors who should push you, in truth, it's your colleagues. As an applied musician, you spend one hour a week with your teacher, but you spend 30-40 practice hours each week practicing near your colleagues. This is also why I think students who practice in a music school practice room make more progress than those who do it at home. It makes a program stronger, it makes the candidates who get those "hens tooth" jobs truly truly truly the very cream of the crop.
I'm surprised you didn't bring up Beckett's throw to Bobby Abreu's head or Nick Swisher's strike out the other day (Swisher didn't give up a run either!)
ReplyDelete