I had a meeting with the director of my programme this evening and I told her about my intention to leave the programme. Of course she asked me which school I am going to. When she heard the name of my school, she immediately said, "What? Why this school? Why? It is located in the middle part of the USA. Why do you choose this school?"
Almost all the people I have met ask me the same questions. They always think that the schools in the middle part of the USA (except for U of Michigan) are not good. Some of them even look down on those schools because they are not famous. They always ask me why I don't choose those top music schools such as Juilliard, Oberlin etc. I think these people are very ignorant as they only care about the fame. I always believe that not all students in a famous school are good. For studying music, the most important thing is to find a teacher that you can work with. Of course, it is true that famous schools have more good teachers. However, that doesn't mean these teachers suit you. Some professors in the top schools assume that the students all have a good foundation and they don't work with the students in a very detailed way. They spend much time to work with the best students at school. It always turns out that those students who are not the best are being "neglected" and they are not able to gain much knowledge. Apparently, they have a nice certificate when they graduate but they don't really play their instruments very well.
I don't have a good foundation and I think those top music schools don't really suit me at this stage. The undergraduate course is the most suitable time to build up a good foundation before promoting to graduate school. There is still a large room for improvement on my techniqus and musical expression. Besides, I met a good teacher when I went to music camp. This professor is very supportive in my admittance to his school. I don't think I should apply for other schools just because of their fames. Not only I will offend the professor, this will also give him a bad impression of Hong Kong students. I can't predict whether I will have a good school life at this university. Yet, I believe that I need to try before I have to do something that displeases a professor. If I really don't like this university, still it won't be too late for me to transfer to another school after year 1 because I am younger than most year 1 students.
Indeed, in the USA, people don't really care whether you study at a famous school for undergraduate. Graduate school is a lot more important. But sadly, most Hong Kong people don't understand the relationship between the ability of a student and the standard of a school. They only care about the fame.
Is fame really that essential?
4 comments:
只重名氣是華人的通病，在香港，很多父母只管把子女往名校大門鑽，認為只有名校能給予他們子女最好的教育，卻完全不考慮子女的應付能力及他們未來的學校生活，結果讓子女承擔更大的心理壓力，愛反變成了害！
能夠如此清晰自己的方向及作出如此明智的選擇，已是成功的開始，努力吧，你的前途定無可限量！
I don't want to discourage you if you have already decided. And hope you don't mind that I'm going to say what you've probably heard again and again.
But I'd like to share some of my own experience.
When I was in primary and high school in HK, I didn't understand why so many
people want to get into those 'famed' schools in HK. For guys the most sought after one was QC (and it probably still is).
So I didn't really make any extra effort and ended up in an okay school (it was mix of band 1 and 2 when we had 5 bands).
It was only after I graduated high school did I realized what I had missed by not going to one of the 'famed' schools in HK.
I still worked hard and with lots of luck I ended up in a 'famed' university.
(Btw, this is only just part of it. There are many stuffs that I missed that I didn't realize til I was in university.
If I guess correctly, you probably went to one of the 'famed' schools, so you don't know how much more opportunities you got compared
to the majority of HK students. )
And, let's not call that 'fame', but, 'reputation'. Reputation is crucial because people are busy and it's used as a filtering signal.
Maybe it's different for music. But for many fields, if you didn't go to a 'famed' university, you don't have chance to get into certain
desirable job. The HR person just press 'Delete', if they don't recognize your university. They might not even bother to look at your
experiences and all the awards you get. Because they already deleted your resume after reading the name of your university.
It's true that it'd be all well when you can get into a top graduate program afterwards.
But you might want to check on the difficulty of that first. For some average university X and top graduate program Y,
it's quite common that maybe only the very top graduating student each year would have a chance in getting admitted by Y.
For some X, it's possible that they could have a student admitted to Y only every few years.
(For example, for my graduate program, I don't think we get student admitted from Hongkong (that's including all HK's Us) every year.)
Again, maybe all these don't apply for music schools. But I believe this is the situation for many fields.
I think the professor would be happy for you in any case if you pick the best option given the limited available information now.
And it'd be better if you consider other options now, then later...
The school application process is 'fair', that schools can reject you, and you can also reject schools. There shouldn't be
any bad feelings (esp from the school) in either case.
Shek:
Thank you very much for your encouragement and support!
Arael:
Well, it is true that I have heard the same words for many times. I am fine with it because I start to get used to hearing them.
I agree with you that I can reject schools (and a professor's help). Unfortunately, the music industry is very narrow. I can't predict whether I will have a chance to meet this professor in competitions. Music is a very "personal" subject and it is just a piece of cake for a judge to make a student lose in a competition. Though there are more than one judge in a competition, a participant cannot win unless all the judges agree with each other. Considering this possible consequence, I dare not do anything that might offend a professor, especially he is always invited to be a judge in competitions.
About being admitted to a top graduate programme, the music schools mainly care about an applicant's performance in the audition. I would say, music is a very special subject. It really depends on a student's talent and efforts. A freshman can play better than a doctor. The teachers can never know until they hear the student's playing. And of course, the teachers in graduate programmes also look at which teacher a student has studied with in undergraduate school. There are many excellent piano teachers teaching in small schools in the USA. The name of the school is not really that crucial if you study with a famous professor.
Most important is you understand yourself and you know what to expect and you won't regret in the future.
If you take music as your career, you can't just consider it as a "personal" thing. Also, it's quite political, though I used to believe that only the performance in an audition counts.
Of course, if you do it for yourself and your background allows you to do that, you don't need to care too much about other things.
All the best!
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