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Hi I'm in my last year of cegep (Quebec equivalent to last year of high school) and I need to do my choices for university soon.

I know you've talked about top school for sound recording, but my question is what would be better between a master's degree in sound recording (after a bachelor's degree in music composition or something similar (about 6 years total)), a bachelor's degree in sound engineering (about 3-4 years), or a private sound recording school (which is only a year of studying but isn't considered as a university program here)?

I still have a bit of time to choose (inscriptions are due February) but depending on what I choose I will try to concentrate on more specific stuff for the next session.

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pr0gr4m Fri, 08/01/2008 - 13:55

From the information you've given, the best route would be either of the true college degree programs.

The reason I say that is because you learn a lot more things with a degree than what you learn from a private recording school. That extra learning may help you in many other areas. For example, you'll learn some electrical engineering, acoustical engineering, writing and math skills and many other things that may come in real handy 10 years down the road when there are no good paying recording engineer jobs left.

As Greener says, there are lots of factors but if you look at it from the standpoint of what you can do jobwise the day after you graduate from either of your choices, the real 4 year college stuff will give you more knowledge and more options.

As for masters vs bachelors, a while back I read a good article on the different earning potential between masters and bachelors graduates. It was somewhat dependent on the field chosen but in general, the masters degrees didn't increase the wages enough to counter the extra time and money that was put into getting the masters degree.

anonymous Fri, 08/01/2008 - 21:58

As for the master's degree, I would do a bachelor's degree in music composition and have a side job as music composer for movies or things like that if I can or music teaching to earn a little extra if possible.

Another question about the job :

Do you (the people here working full time as recording engineers) have enough free time to have a side-job (like 5-10 hours of private instrument teaching or music composition in spare time)?

Thomas W. Bethel Sat, 08/02/2008 - 10:30

Slice wrote: As for the master's degree, I would do a bachelor's degree in music composition and have a side job as music composer for movies or things like that if I can or music teaching to earn a little extra if possible.

Another question about the job :

Do you (the people here working full time as recording engineers) have enough free time to have a side-job (like 5-10 hours of private instrument teaching or music composition in spare time)?

With the way the music industry is currently headed there is lots of time for a full time recording engineer to do his or her "thing" since most large recording studios are closing down or downsizing. I would worry more about finding a full time recording engineering job when I graduated from college and less about free time pursuits. YMMV