What I learned in Grad School

I wrote a blog entry about a week ago and never got around to posting it. But I was reminded of it last night when I came home late after a long day of rehearsals, with this piece of paper in my hand:
It is a text sheet to a song that is on my concert program for this Sunday with a hand-transcribed melody underneath. I'll explain the sheet in a bit, but first, here is the blog entry I wrote last week.

I don't remember the argument my thesis was supposed to make. I don't remember what I said during my oral examinations. Heck, I don't think I even remember most of the curriculum from my classes. But now, after being out in the "real world" for almost two years, I realize that I did learn (and retain) a few important things from my graduate school experience:

1) Set the Bar High.
When I went to the University of Washington for graduate school I was feeling very down. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and felt like I was just spinning my wheels studying Vocal Performance, not to mention it was costing me a pretty penny in student loans to do so. But after a couple quarters I not only felt like I could handle getting a master's degree, but I was also encouraged to study Music History so I would come away with an academic degree, which would be very useful for a potential teaching career. I set the bar as high as I could reach and then started working towards it.

2) Never Give Up.
It seemed like a good idea at the beginning of my graduate studies, but it was actually quite insane of me to work towards two master's degrees instead of one. And when I had about six months to go before graduation, I honestly didn't think there was any way I could get those two degrees. It seemed like too much work in too little time and I was so sick and tired of school. But after taking one day at a time and slogging through my coursework, exams and thesis, those last six months did result in two degrees. One of my proudest moments in life was standing up at my graduation ceremony, singing for the entire crowd, and then later walking across that stage to shake the hand of our school president.

3) Know Your Limitations.
It was really a poor decision for me to take on two master's programs simultaneously. Not only that, but I was also juggling three part-time jobs in between classes, rehearsals and practicing. This workaholic pattern began way before graduate school, but really reared its ugly head in my last year of studies. My problem was I was always looking too far ahead in the future instead of what I needed to learn along the way to get there. I had the image of "Cougardiva, B.A., B.M., M.A., M.M." in my head and thought those four degrees on my wall would be my way to prove that I was successful and intelligent. But in hindsight, concentrating my efforts in just one area at a time would have still brought me success, and less agony along the way.

4) Use Your Resources.
This is something my Dad told me during a telephone conversation we had while I was auditioning in the fall of 2006. I learned how to properly find and use resources in graduate school. I became a veritable expert at Chicago Style and tracking down the perfect quote for a paper, but never really figured out how to apply the concept in the real world until he told me on the phone. Living in a foreign country and trying to find work in a very subjective (and sometimes unfair) business often made me feel very lost and vulnerable. This advice from my Dad was a saving grace in one of my low moments, because it made me realize that although I was on this big adventure by myself, it didn't mean that I had to be alone. After all, resources don't have to be just a bibliography. They can also be your friends, family, work colleagues, and even friendly strangers.

So, now back to that piece of paper. Our accompanist for the concert does not play by ear and there was no music written out for this song. We had to make some cuts to our program yesterday and the second half of the concert was running a bit short. So, I volunteered to transcribe the song so we could keep it in the program and spent yesterday evening finding a good key, and writing out the melody for the accompanist. And after I dropped off the music before going home last night, I realized that I learned how to cleanly notate and transcribe music in an orchestration class in graduate school. That made me think back to this post, in which I said I hardly remembered any course content. Well, apparently some things did rub off. :)