Mike,

All I can say is that two of my most favorite and personally transforming courses, in college, were courses not for my major.

This had much to do with my own interest in the area of study. However, without professors that were totally in love with their subjects, and their care for their students, it would not have been so impacting.

I’m one of the 90%, and I can say without a doubt (on most days) that I don’t regret majoring in music. There are many reasons for this (not least that I made some of my closest friends in the School of Music), but I think the biggest is that studying music, particularly at APU with its emphasis at that time on group performance, taught me how to figure out how things work, on both a technical and an interpersonal level. That’s applicable to just about any career.

Big picture, dude. Embrace it.

In my opinion, from a student’s perspective, nothing is more important than these 2 things.

The teacher is passionate about the subject matter.

The teacher cares about the students.

The courses that I remember the most from college had one or both of these. My form and analysis teacher was boring and did not care a great deal about his students (a fact that I regret alluding to in the university newspaper.) I could use some better knowledge of form and analysis almost everyday of my professional life, but the teacher sucked. I guess I could take some responsibility for my lack of form knowledge, but it sure is easier to blame my mediocre teacher.

I still remember the great history class where the teacher was a little bit funny and cared a lot about history.

My beginning band program feeds three middle schools. I used to think that my purpose was only to give each of the three middle schools a well balanced group of sixth graders the next year. Half of the kids did not go on to middle school band though. So have I been a failure to half of my band kids? I don’t think so. I have adjusted my thinking to include the idea that a 5th grader learning to play hot cross buns has value in and of itself. They don’t play hot cross buns just so that they can go on to play jingle bells, ode to joy and then someday play the bass trombone part to Bruckner 8.

Now I feel myself rambling, so I will stop there.

Hey Mike, your 90% allegation is maybe a bit high. Sure, 90% won’t be making careers in “commercial music”, whatever that is, but way over 10% of music majors DO make careers in music education, church music, etc.

And if you add in music majors who do pursue main employment elsewhere, but still teach, minister or gig, the number probably approaches 90%.

So be happy, and take comfort that Sharolyn’s Husband posted two conditions that are true about you:

“The teacher is passionate about the subject matter.

The teacher cares about the students.”

Teach for awhile, and you’ll start hearing form students you can barely remember who are using the start you gave them in unexpected ways… and it will be especially true of you.

I accompanied my sister-in-law (both physically and musically) at her audition to The Boston Conservatory. This is a musical theater school where you go to get really good at singing, acting, and dancing. The dean happened to be there and a small crowd of potential students gathered around him. He said, “If you think you *might* want to be a nurse, don’t come to my school. If you would like to study abroad, don’t come to my school.” My sister-in-law graduated, and she is very good at musical theater.

To contrast, at APU, one class I took was American Government. I wrote a paper on the election of 1948. This was pre-internet, on a subject that is not my fancy, so I was pretty proud of my work. I changed how I see our country, and even gives me insight to some similarities and differences to our current election. I mention this example because my education was more broad, which is one reason I chose APU.

Blah, blah, blah.
The point: You are a part of a broad education experience that, as Phil said, will enhance the lives of your students in unexpected and perhaps forever unknown ways. (Which, you already know, I just feel the need to say.)

Oops. Me.

Oops. Me.

Phil, I want to personally thank you for being such an encouragement and mentor to Mike. I know he wont’ say it, so I’ll just do it for him. :)

Phil, I should clarify, I only count students who make their living as programmer/arranger keyboardists who specialize in vintage synths and mo-town.

Everything else I consider an abysmal failure.

That’s okay Michael, as a pastor 100 percent of the people who listen to me each Sunday don’t actually do what I say most of the time. As a non music major (theology) I am so much better off for the music and for my music classes I took. I can’t say I was much with the piano, however I did snag some music scholarships for singing. This has been tremendous for me as a lead pastor even some 27/28 years later. .

3 of 17, Sharolyn.

Don’t think I haven’t forgotten.

As for the topic at hand… I just have to say that my theology classes were among the most significant at my time at APU, even though I have shunned the ministry to return to my life of musical sin. Don’t worry about it, it my advice. Teach them to the best of their ability. You’re not even remotely accountable for those who don’t do music professionally.

Chad, I immediately feared you hadn’t. :)

And, let’s not forget that your students are just that: students….three-quarter baked grownups, at best. Perhaps the most signifcant thing one can learn during one’s college years is how to BE. Meaning, how to try hard, dig deep, wrap your head around big concepts and stay focused on them for longer than the 20 seconds it takes to text one’s roommate and say “This class rocks!” I’m quite certain that you and your classes move your almost grown up students a few steps further down the path of better being, so to speak. It puts the cheese in cheesy to say it this way, but the field you’re training them for is, ya know, life! (But I do agree with Phil…90% may be a bit pessimistic Professor Lee.)

I was a drama major. ONE person from my class (’84) has ended up working professionally in the theatre - teaching in a drama department.

A BA in drama is brilliant preparation for ministry, entreprenuerial endeavors, business, and possibly parenthood. (I’ll let you know in a few years when my kid is older and the outcomes are clearer.)
For the same reasons that people have mentioned - we learned the same things that Aly talked about learning at APU in music: resourcefulness, figuring things out, working with people under a variety of, um, complicated circumstances; leadership, persuasion, listening, collaboration.

Plus holding your liquor, an important skill which I do not imagine is part of the APU undergrad program.

Just be interesting! Not “give interesting lectures”, which you clearly do, but be an interesting person. It will give them reason to feel hopeful about adulthood and ‘the real world’.

“Plus holding your liquor, an important skill which I do not imagine is part of the APU undergrad program.”

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let’s not be toooo hasty.

I have more than one friend who majored in that.

I remember my freshman year… it was the first year that APU had an official drama department. We were doing “Guys and Dolls,” always a high class show.

Anywhoo… it was bad. Bad, bad, bad. I knew this because the community youth theater that I did shows with was good, good, good. I knew what a good show felt like as it was tightening up and getting rehearsed.

About the last three weeks, as our doom became imminent, several of us who knew what we were doing would stand around and say… “Dear heavens… what are we gonna do? This is going to be embarrassing.”

The answer was always something like… “Well… I dunno, but I think we better drink some tequila.”

Then, strangely, Baby Jesus worked a miracle in dress rehearsal, and the show actually turned out sorta ok. We still decided on the tequila.

My father has a similar story - singing a supporting role in a Gilbert & Sullivan in high school, he found himself on opening night with a painful sore throat.

No Chloraseptic in 1929….but there was gin.