Understanding Career & Degree Expectations of Undergraduate Music Majors

Download or read book Understanding Career & Degree Expectations of Undergraduate Music Majors written by Karen Patricia Munnelly and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Each year thousands of students graduate with music degrees. Many of these students will go on to engage in project-based work and maintain a portfolio career as opposed to having one full-time job within the field of music. Maintaining a portfolio career requires many skills outside of playing an instrument such as financial management, marketing, networking and fundraising. The goal of the study was to gain a better understanding into the career goals and degree expectations of undergraduate music majors, so that the data can be used to inform career development and career preparation programming within music schools. For this mixed-method study, online surveys were distributed to undergraduate music majors at seven higher education institutions. The findings revealed that there is a distinction between the jobs undergraduate music majors associate with success, the jobs they would ideally like to hold and the jobs they actually expect to hold. Many of the students surveyed are aware that they will likely hold multiple jobs and be self-employed as opposed to having one full-time job. The study also revealed that music majors desire that their undergraduate degree provide them with the skills necessary to be an employable musician in the 21st century in addition to providing artistic and technical skills on their instrument.