I'm a full-time geek and a part-time musician, myself. There are five guys
(including me) in my rock band; we're all IT folks. Recently, we had to get a
different rhythm guitarist because the first one decided to focus his attention
on the larvae he and his wife were busy gestating; we traded a SQL guy for an
OS/hardware guy. :)
Granted, the industry may be somewhat different now than when I got into it, but
I got into IT with no degree at all (and of course there wasn't much in the way
of degrees relating to "IT" back then anyway). Well, OK, I had two years of a
four-year theater major.... :P
If you really want to have some related schooling before you jump into the job
market, you may wish to get yourself some sort of a certification (Linux,
Microsoft, Cisco, A+, etc); the most basic certs on a given track can generally
be had relatively quickly.
With or without a certification, I'd jump right in to the job market. I
personally (as did, I'd imagine, at least a few folks here) cut my teeth at UITS
(though it was UCS then) "Support Center" back in the day. Depending on your
particular interests (especially if those interests include support and
systems/network administration) you can get a really broad overview of lots of
different jobs and careers while you're there. You'll also meet lots of smart
folks, which is always awesome.
I know nothing about working in the computer labs, but the Support Center was a
rocking place to prepare myself for working in IT. They were also very happy to
let me learn.
Barring that, if you'd rather transition directly into another graduate program
(perhaps along with a part-time job at UITS, and some IU jobs have tuition
assistance), have you looked into the IU School Of Informatics? Informatics has
folks doing wicked-sick stuff with technology; these folks come from many many
different backgrounds (biology, music, mathematics, computer science, business,
visual arts, the movie industry, etc) and you may find a way to work your musical
interests and your technological interests into a single graduate program.
Cooley
dcooley@kiva.net
On Tue Mar 25 12:50 , Steven Black <blacks@indiana.edu> sent:
>Ben,
>
>The music / computer overlap is a lot more widespread than just
>Bloomington. I worked in the SF Bay area, and a lot of the brightest
>people I worked with were also musicians of one sort of another.
>Personally, I'm not a musician, but my father (who is also in the
>industry) is known to DJ.
>
>Here's some things that I, personally, think you should consider:
>
>* How much free time do you want to have? Having been a student for so
>long, this is likely to be something you could easily forget to think
>about. To have free time you can either be freelance, or you could have
>a lot of vacation time. It can be a lot easier to make the money go
>around if you simply have a lot of vacation time. (Outside of working at
>a university it is hard to get much vacation time.)
>
>* Know the perils of freelance work. Until someone gets comfortable with
>freelance work, many people find they spend almost all of their free
>time trying to find another freelance job. Then there's the issue of the
>lack of health care. This isn't much of an issue while you're young and
>healthy, but then you'd be surprised how many issues you can develop
>when nobody checks on your health. (My father's been a consultant off
>and on his entire career. I say this with enough second-hand experience
>to have always wanted to stay away from it.)
>
>* If you like the Bloomington area, consider taking a job at the
>University. They don't pay a lot, but they are regularly hiring, and
>they're always happy for you to learn more. You can spend another four
>to eight years trying to get your education just right to enter the
>field, or you could try getting your feet wet as soon as possible and
>go from there. They have part-time jobs that come up regularly. Even if
>you're totally unqualified for one of their full-time jobs right now,
>a lot of people in UITS started out part-time. Part-time positions can
>generally suck (anywhere you go), but full-time UITS positions at IU
>have some nice benefits.
>
>* Weigh the job opportunities by their networking possibilities as well
>as the monetary rewards. When you're entering the industry, you need
>to meet other people. You need to meet people who may be hiring in the
>future, and perhaps most importantly, you need to meet people who do
>interesting work where you have the opportunity to talk with them and
>think to yourself, "You know, I want to do what s/he does."
>
>* Look for jobs with growth opportunities. When you're starting out, you
>want to have the opportunities to grow your skills. This means a number
>of things:
>
> + getting a job where you know you'll need to learn some new things.
> You'll know you'll need to pick some things up fairly quickly, but
> what you need to know should be within reason.
>
> + getting a job where they encourage you to learn new things on your
> own. This could be as simple as a place letting you read books on
> your own during down-time.
>
> + avoiding jobs where they work you to the bone leaving no time to
> learn. This includes passing by short-term big money in favor of
> growing your skills.
>
> + looking for jobs where they will pay for your continued education.
> Do they pay for a college class? Will they send you to conferences?
>
>* Leverage your support network. You're looking to break in to a new
>field. You'll need to spend some time studying new material. If you
>think you might do some part-time work, then you will likely not be able
>to support yourself living on your own. As such, you should try to avoid
>it.
>
>* Take inventory of your current skills. A lot of music people don't
>really touch computers at all. However, there are others that manage to
>do quite a bit with them -- even though their primary focus was on the
>music at the time. Have you had any computer-related issues that you
>solved on your own? Have you installed your own hardware or software? Do
>you know any computer languages already? Which operating systems have
>you used, and of those, which are you comfortable with? Make sure you
>take note of your "soft" skills, too. (You may have exceptional people
>skills. You probably are comfortable in front of a group of people,
>etc.)
>
>* Keep an eye on the job postings. You should also know that even if you
>don't see yourself as a perfect fit for a job, you may be the best that
>they've seen. Look for jobs where you wouldn't mind learning what you
>don't already know. Also, if you see a lot of jobs looking for something
>in particular, you may want to buy a book on it and read up about it.
>
>* Are you willing to start off in a support position? Support jobs are
>something of a classic starting point for people trying to break in to
>the industry. They depend primarily on the ability to communicate well
>with people. They also have a high tendency to burn people out. This
>means two things:
>
> 1. They're almost always hiring. Local ISPs are the prime example
> of places which typically need this sort of position filled. While
> those have been disappearing, almost any tech-related business may
> have a need of phone support.
>
> 2. The position needs to be seen as a transitory one. Leverage the
> position for what you can learn, and stay with it until you've
> mastered it. Plan your exit strategy when you're hired. Read up on
> other computer-related material during your off time.
>
>* Attend computer-related conferences when you can. These not only give
>you a great opportunity to learn new skills and meet interesting people
>also interested in the field, they have been known to help people find
>great new jobs. (I met someone who got his job with Canonical as a
>direct result of talking to people at a conference. I met him at the
>conference prior to him getting the job, and when I ran in to him a
>couple months later at another conference he had a fantastic new job.)
>The closest, cheapest conference around this area is probably the Ohio
>LinuxFest http://www.ohiolinux.org/>. I know a number of people from
>Bloomington attended last year.
>
>* Having a degree is more important than having a degree in your field.
>Don't think that your degree is worthless, just because you aren't going
>to be using it when you go in to computers. I've worked with a lot of
>people with degrees in unrelated fields. (Including PhDs in physics,
>and PhDs in medieval literature.) It matters more that you know what
>they want. You've already proven that you can learn what will be needed.
>(Last I heard, I think the numbers are that on average people change
>entire industries every seven years right now. There are a lot of people
>not using their degrees.)
>
>I think that's about it. Personally, I think my opinions are highly
>biased (though generally sensible), so your mileage may vary.
>
>Cheers,
>Steven Black
>
>On Fri, Mar 21, 2008 at 09:00:11PM +0000, Mark Krenz wrote:
>>
>> Ben,
>>
>> As someone who was a music ed major as well for my first two years of
>> college, I can say that you're in good company. Probably a quarter of
>> people involved in the computer industry are musicians. I think you
>> should think about leveraging your music degrees to get into the
>> computer industry instead of how to just approach a computer job like
>> being a programmer or an administrator.
>>
>> The first thing that comes to mind is games. There are many games
>> that have a large budget for custom music, often recorded using
>> electronic instruments.
>>
>> There are also probably people who act as technology testers or
>> consultants for music software creators like Reason, Garage Band,
>> Cubase, etc. Even electronic music equipment manufacturers need these
>> people for software that they write.
>>
>> So how do you get these jobs? Perhaps just meet some people who are
>> already in them at conferences, through forums or whatever. I think the
>> computer music/audio industry has grown a lot in the past 10 years. For
>> the first few decades of computing, audio took a back seat to graphics,
>> but now its finally caught up and there are careers in that kind of
>> stuff. There is also the whole emerging industry of streaming music and
>> cataloging it. These are just a few ideas, just look around your own
>> house and think of how all the electronics are created and realize that
>> there are many people behind the creation of each one of those items.
>> Including musicians.
>>
>> I think Joe Auty and some of the other musicians on the list will have
>> something to say too.
>>
>> Mark
>>
>> On Fri, Mar 21, 2008 at 08:03:15PM GMT, Ben Shewmaker [benshewmaker@yahoo.com]
said the following:
>> > Hey all,
>> >
>> > I was hoping to get a little bit of advice from people on this mailing list.
After getting an undergraduate degree in music education and starting a masters
in saxophone performance at IU, I quit after a semester because I wasn't enjoying
it anymore. I was looking at other options and thought I'd like to try
electronic music and so started a masters in electronic music from the University
of Miami. But, after a semester there, I find myself back in Bloomington again
searching for a career that excites me and also has a better chance of gainful
employment than finding a position to teach electronic music at the university
level (which is what I thought I would do with my masters in electronic music.
turns out I wasn't that into the program and there are very few positions for
what I was training myself for. maybe 5 to 10 positions in the country every
year according to a proff at IU).
>> >
>> > Anyways, I am again reconsidering my options and was at least glimpsing in
the direction of some sort of career involved in computers or networking. I know
saying I want a job here is like saying I want a job doing music; music is too
broad a categorization as there are many specific areas of study within music. I
was just hoping if anyone could at least point me in the right direction to find
out what types of positions are out there, how hard they are to get, how
rewarding they are, etc. And also, what type of education is required to enter
this field and are there any really good schools nearby for computer science type
degrees. I know IU has a great music school but I know nothing about their other
departments.
>> >
>> > Any help anyone could give me would be really appreciated!
>> >
>> > Ben Shewmaker
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