Vanderbilt University

Date: Apr 24 2011
Major: Music - Composition/Theory (This Major's Salary over time)
Vanderbilt University is an excellent university that I didn't appreciate until seeing how much better my education was than many of my friends'. I had some excellent professors, and had great opportunities that I didn?t realize were so rare in college education.

It operates in a very "new-school" fashion, which was frustrating often, as a student, because it wasn't what I expected, but I think in the long run it has its benefits. To explain some, Vanderbilt is all about creating a learning/living all-encompassing environment… living on campus, for example, is mandatory (at least for 3 years… there isn't quite enough room to house all seniors). Greek housing is limited to 6 people per organization. As much as possible, Vanderbilt tries to integrate students with different interests, majors, and backgrounds. There is no such thing as an "Athlete's Dorm" or "Honors College". There isn't even an athletic department at all, in fact; professors demand the same performance from everybody (even the star quarterback, or the guy whose granddad the student center is named after).

That said, applicants should be aware of this "non-traditional" scene before enrolling. If you want to live off-campus in apartments with your frat buddies, only show up on campus when you have to go to class or want to tailgate for a football game, and not really interact with different types of people, this is not the school for you. You will have an expensive meal plan for on campus and you will be living on campus and interacting with different types of people. For what it?s worth, though, the housing is excellent for campus housing. It?s not as nice as what you?d get living off campus in a college town, but it?s much nicer than what most schools offer ON campus. Especially the first-year houses? they?re brand-new and gorgeous!

My biggest advice for Blair School of Music applicants: Make sure you know what you're getting into! I didn't. I didn't know "School of Music" meant "Conservatory-like Art Music ('Classical' Music and Avant Garde only) School". It's FANTASTIC if you're classically trained and are familiar with the classical music and music academia worlds. Blair is designed to get you prepared for music graduate school, so you can continue in music academia or classical performance. As much as they pretend to be, however, the music faculty is not particularly interested in the popular music scene from any perspective. There are dabbles of it in the curriculum here and there, but this is not the place to train to compose/arrange/sing/perform in one of the Nashville recording studios. The popular/rock/country/anything-most-people-have-heard-of music scene really isn't welcome at Blair.

Moreover, Blair School of Music actually tries very hard to do just the antithesis of what the rest of Vanderbilt is doing with their student integration stuff. The music degree requires tons of hours in the music building and very very little of a liberal arts core on the rest of campus. They really encourage music students to live together, eat, sleep, and live in the music building, and not really get out much. It is very separate from the rest of Vanderbilt (as much as Vanderbilt will allow) unless you force your way into the rest of Vanderbilt's scene.

Blair professors discourage (and some go so far as to demand abstaining) Greek life and involvement in other campus activities. I cannot count the number of required concerts I had to attend during big home football games or "Popular Music" events on campus. It seems rather absurd, really, how ignorant the Blair faculty is of the fact that Blair School of Music is, indeed, a school of Vanderbilt University.

That said: the way around it (what I wish I had done!) is to make music your SECOND major. If you really enjoy music and want to study it, but aren't certain you want a career in classical performance or music academia, you should not apply to the School of Music. You should apply for another major… something else you may be interested in… Human Organizational Development is a popular one… or Biology if you're considering medical school… or accounting or something like that if you want to go into business. Then just declare music as your second major. Here's why: you won't technically be a student of the school of music. The Vanderbilt College of Arts and Science will be in charge of you and will be the one to confer your degree. You'll still have completed a Music Major, but it will not be a Bachelor of Music degree.

What this means is that Blair does not own you, like they try so hard to do. Second majors have astronomically less time required of them. No required concerts (unless a class requires them, but that's rare), no Thursday school meeting every week for 4 years, no silly language requirements (I had to take Italian instead of Spanish because it's 'more useful for musicians'… and ten times more useless in any other field in America), no extra silly time commitments.

I cannot express how much I regret being a student of the music school. The classes were good (good enough anyway), there are some truly outstanding professors, and the workload wasn't too much. I definitely got a pretty good education. But I felt like I missed out on so much of the rest of college while locked up in the music building.

I am currently a medical student at the Medical University of South Carolina. I decided to take that route after discovering how silly continuing with music after college would be (in my opinion). I did complete my music degree, and got in all the prerequisites for med school. But it took an average of 17-18 class hours per semester for four years (PLUS the "extra" zero-hour courses that are required) and an extra summer, and I never had one true elective. All of my electives were the science core I needed to apply to medical school. Students in the College of Arts and Science could have easily completed a degree in just about anything, in addition to taking the pre-med sciences and some other exciting electives, and still only do 15-16 hours a semester.

The Vanderbilt name was HUGE for my med school application, though! I am quite certain that that saying "Vanderbilt" and "Music Major" was what got me into medical school. Throw a couple good test scores on top of those two points and I was a shoe-in.

Other quick tips that I would give myself if I could go back in time: Get involved with campus organizations (I didn?t much until Junior year, and it was a great way to get connected and enjoy the university). Going Greek isn?t about partying hard? it?s a classy thing. Buy into what Vanderbilt is trying to do; it may feel like the university is trying to play Mom and Dad and control your life a little bit sometimes, but just accepting it will be better than trying to fight it. Start enjoying Nashville the minute you get there; it?s a great town and you won?t have time to do everything it has to offer if you wait. Take some cool electives and other classes; you?ll probably never have the opportunity to learn this stuff again!