Klarinet Archive - Posting 000776.txt from 1997/07

From: SusiPontow@-----.com
Subj: Re: Major decisions
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 18:11:24 -0400

In a message dated 97-07-23 23:42:54 EDT, you write:

<< I want to be a high school band director when I get out of
school, >>

Sarah,

To the best of my knowledge, to be a high school band director you must have
a music education degree or certification to teach. Many people decide to
double major in performance and education. From what I can tell, a Bachelor
of Music Performance isn't worth much, if anything at all, as far as finding
a job is concerned, unless you go to a really great school with an intensive
performance curriculum. As for myself, I triple majored in music
performance, music education, and mathematics education at Indiana University
of Pennsylvania, which is an excellent school for teacher education.
However, because of financial straits I couldn't finish my student teaching
this past spring as planned, so I just graduated with the performance degree.
But I am sure that all of my education classes helped me immensely in my
performance abilities. Many people that I have encountered believe that
music education is the way to go for the undergraduate degree and then earn a
graduate degree in performance. That way you have a more solid foundation
with which to build your performance skills upon. I am definitely
considering getting my second degree in education this year, because I
believe having the degree will help me to attract private students, and it
sound much better than saying I have 3 semesters of teaching experience at
IUP University School, finished all the coursework for the degree, but don't
have the degree because I didn't have a car and couldn't do my student
teaching. I don't want to explain all of that, but I don't want to give the
impression that I have only a performance degree when I do have all that
experience. By the way, I have heard many excellent things about University
of North Texas. Several students from IUP went there for graduate studies.

I hope this helps you in your decision making.

Take care,

Susan

SusiPontow@-----.com