Posted by Julian on March 14, 2003 at 01:49:37:
I¡¯m very worried about my future. I¡¯m a semester away from graduating with my degree in Instrumental Music Education K-12. But my story is that my original major was Business-Accounting. The reason that I tried that major is because I¡¯ve seen that there are thousands of jobs out there for Accountants. There are jobs out there despite problems with the economy like today. Hence, I continue to see the first page of the classified section of the newspaper filled with Accountant jobs. Also, the income that accountants make was appealing and it seemed like work that I could handle considering that I¡¯m a very diligent person.
But, I switched to Music Education because I love music, have a lots of talent, and felt that it was something that I should do considering the fact that I dwelt with music for my entire life, and have lots of experiences with it. Also, at the time I switch, I kept hearing that there is a huge demand for music teachers and I could do well in that. But, I don¡¯t know if there is even going to be a demand for music teachers in the way that things are going now with the economy. Now, I¡¯m only hearing about cut backs, and things like when programs have cutbacks like this, the music and arts are some of the first to suffer the and those teachers are some of the first to be laid off. Now to me, this is the worse time to be hearing that. It gets me thinking that doing Music Education as a major was a big mistake especially with all of the hard work I put into it. I¡¯m feeling that if I majored in Accounting with all of that hard work, when I get out, I will at least have a good job. Having a job is also important to me.
My second question is for those that travel and knows a lot about the world. Do you think that other countries need music teachers in the way that the U.S. is supposed to need them. Suppose my girlfriend and I would like to live in another country some day. What would I do then?
Thanks,
Julian