Minoring in music

February 29, 2016 at 04:43 AM · When you ask "Would a minor in music get me anywhere," what do you have in mind? What are your musical goals?

February 29, 2016 at 04:59 AM · It depends where you go and what the minor in music involves at your university.

In most cases, the minor in music requires that you take several music history and music theory classes. In many cases there will not be a performance requirement, though some may allow you to take lessons for credit, and some may require you to play in one of the college ensembles (like the orchestra). It's relatively uncommon for there to be a minor in music performance, although some universities have one.

If you study engineering at an ABET-accredited school, you'll find that you have relatively few genuine elective slots available to you, due to the way that ABET structures the curriculum requirements. Music classes will generally eat those elective slots entirely, and the requirements for a minor might even exceed the available elective slots. You'd want to carefully work out a hypothetical course plan to ensure that it would be possible to graduate in 4 years with the music minor without an excessive courseload or summer sessions.

On the plus side, if you're "good at music", so to speak, you will probably enjoy your music classes and they are more likely to be easy "A"s, which you might be grateful for given the heavy-duty workload of an engineering major. A lot of the listening you will need to do for music classes can be done in the background while you do other homework.

On the minus side, if what you really want to do is to have the freedom and time to practice your violin, a formal music minor might not actually help that, especially if you do music performance. Nothing will suck more than having a crushing engineering workload yet somehow needing to find time to prep for a jury because otherwise it'd bring your GPA down.

The music minor will be effectively 100% useless if you decide to drop your engineering major, except to the extent that it either fulfills general graduation requirements or you decide you want to become a music major.

Consider the alternative path of just taking music classes that interest you (no future employer will ever care about whether you got a minor in something), taking violin lessons, playing as much as you have time for, and focusing on your engineering.

March 1, 2016 at 02:51 PM · Just as an idea, my youngest brother is taking engineering and says he spends 60-70 hrs a week studying. He plays the violin (much better than I do) and rarely has time to play. I think it can be done, especially if you are not going to an ivy league school, but you will not have much time for anything else.

March 1, 2016 at 02:59 PM · I am a fantastic DJ but it has never earnt me much. Just get qualified in something that does if I were you. When a hobby becomes a job it soon loses its appeal anyway. Trust me.

March 1, 2016 at 06:32 PM · Personal experience: Ivy League engineering school. As a freshman, practiced 2 to 4 hours a day (a huge jump for me, since I was previously the kid whose mom was lucky to nag them into 45 minutes a day and I'd spend a good chunk of that with a comic book propped up on my stand), still aced classes. As a sophomore, crushed under workload, stopped playing.

March 1, 2016 at 07:11 PM · I've taught college for 20 years. The reason the workload can seem lighter the first year is because students who have had really good chem, calculus, etc., courses in high school find that they have already had at least some exposure to the subject matter of the first-year courses. Students sometimes struggle anyway because college, being on their own, managing their own schedules and activities, etc., is a brave new world. Using a day-planner, always going to class, maintaining a healthy lifestyle, and asking for help when you need it are keys to success.

Lydia's right about ABET programs. And why would you deliberately go to someplace that's not ABET accredited? Some majors are so closely allied with another discipline that a minor is only a few more classes. Like chemistry and biochemistry, kind of an obvious example there. Is there something for your area of engineering that would be like that? So if you going electrical or computer engineering, maybe there is a minor in data analytics or business information technology or such. Just a thought.

I think the reason some folks think "music minor" is because they worry that without the structure, deadlines, formal lessons, etc., they won't have the discipline to practice, or without the "stamp of approval" that comes with the formal minor, they might not have access to teachers and ensembles or even practice rooms. These are legitimate concerns. Make phone calls and ask questions.

March 4, 2016 at 06:02 PM · At least from my experience, a lot of people start as double majors in engineering plus music, but a lot fewer actually graduate with that double major.

The reasons for this are not limited to "these can both be time-consuming majors". The problem is that the general education, non-major requirements for ABET-accredited engineering programs, and the liberal arts (if doing a BA in music) or conservatory (if doing a BM) are very different.

Engineers who try to double-major to get a BA in music find themselves staring down a huge pile of general education requirements, some of which can be double-counted against the engineering requirements, and some of which cannot. And to optimize your double-counting, you can find yourself forced into very specific course choices that might not have been your ideal choice for rounding out your college education.

The conservatory requirements overlap even less, although at least there you're mostly getting to take the music courses that you presumably wanted to do, rather than a bunch of general-ed stuff.

You will have better luck doing a minor or double-major if you come into college with a lot of credits already. Some schools will accept your APs at counting towards some general-ed requirements or other prerequisite classes, for instance. Be aware that the better the university, the less likely they are to treat your APs as meaningful, though.

March 4, 2016 at 07:18 PM · AP is fine for something that is a "terminal" general-ed requirement. However, if the course that you "AP-ing" is a prerequisite to something further, then you may find that AP did not prepare you adequately. For example if you have AP Chem, and that takes care of your entire Chem requirement for your engineering degree (such as it would for electrical engineering), that's fine. But if you are going to need more Chem (such as you would in a typical chemical engineering degree), then you are likely better off taking General Chem in college, even if it turns out to be fairly easy, because that's going to be your foundation for organic and p-chem. Likewise it can be risky to try to move too far ahead in Math using AP credits. You can find yourself in harder classes without truly adequate prep. There should be no such issues using AP credits for humanities gen-ed requirements.

March 4, 2016 at 09:45 PM · Paul, that depends on the school. Ivy League schools, for instance, typically do not allow AP classes to count towards graduation requirements. It can be difficult even to transfer in classes from competitive but non-Ivy schools and have them count towards graduation requirements. (Speaking from experience, here.)

March 5, 2016 at 02:30 AM · Personally, I started as a chemistry and music performance double major. I loved music, was good little violinist, and didn't know how to live without it. But I also knew that I did not want a full time career in music. Harmony and music history counted as humanities electives towards the BS and all the math and science counted as the core towards the BA. On paper, it worked.

By the end of my freshman year I realized that I didn't have enough time for both. It simply wasn't feasible if I wanted to do well at anything, sleep, and eat. I'm sure some people can do it, but I am not one of them. I switched to biochemistry and computer engineering with a minor in music. I was already 2/3 way through the minor requirements and that would allow me to still take lessons and participate in symphony. On paper, it worked.

By the middle of my sophomore year I realized that I didn't even have time for lessons or symphony rehearsals let alone practice. While I was progressing, my rate of progression relative to my peers was slow. I was in way out of my league. I dropped the minor.

From that point through the first several years after college and while starting my career, I'd play occasionally when I needed a mental break. She came out of her case on average of 2 - 3 times a month. I started to dabble a bit more off and on playing in a small community orchestra for another few years. Finally, about 10 years after college I started taking lessons again and rejoined a large community symphony that I played with a few years during high school. At this point I'm settled into my career. Without the stresses of time, money, and grades I enjoy playing even more now than I did then. I also play much better than I ever have. In fact I play more, because I have the luxury of time.

I have no regrets. But if I could turn back time, I wish someone had told me in a way I understood that you cannot do it all. It took a couple of years for me to learn the hard way. I didn't fail by not getting a major or minor in music. I didn't fail by putting music on hold for a while. I succeeded at establishing my life so that I could enjoy music more than would have been otherwise possible.