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History (BA/MA/PhD)



I have a music degree, and when people ask me why I do web development, the answer is a combination of "I enjoy it" and "I have children and therefore need to be able to afford things".


I was very into music since middle school. I loved performing, the adrenaline rush, the challenge. I wasn't that good, but I was passionate, so a few musicians encouraged me to make a career of it. My dad strongly disagreed, he wanted me to embrace my other love of STEM. Now I'm gainfully employed coding and I have multiple bands I play with. So damn, I think my dad was right.


Music is one of those degrees I think naturally translates to programming. My first programming boss many years ago, was a classically trained professional musician. He ended up starting a software company with another person (who was crazy so we all moved on) to create some kind of management software. Eventually he retired as the CTO of a large privately held company.


Giving how technologically grounded most music degrees are now I don't think it's that unusual that positions often move into programming for work


I don't think most music degrees are technologically grounded. I have a degree and courses in music from 2 major universities and both of them were reticent to teach about music software. Music is a traditional field, there's a lot of older professors hanging on to tenure who listen, write by hand, and generally rely on their ears and aural sense, rather than tech.

These folks could definitely use software, but why? They largely don't need it, they are performers or educators, not composers. Even composers, some prefer to work at the piano or in their heads, writing down snippets in tech or on paper doesn't matter to them in my experience.


Well, in my experience as an educator and student over the last... 12 years or so... degrees that universities offer are overwhelmingly comprised of students wanting to study electronic music/audio engineering or some hybridisation of those (sound composition/screen composition). Orchestral degrees are becoming far less popular.




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