Recording School: Is College Worth It?

Choosing a recording school can be a challenge for students who want to establish a successful recording career but are not sure how to impress employers. Traditional recording programs at colleges and universities can do a good job of teaching students basic knowledge about recording. The classroom environments tends to be fairly simplistic, and students can take their time over concepts they may struggle with, learning recording software as they go.

But is this model really effective? Recording studios may not agree that college is the best place to learn the skills students need to succeed in the real world. Recording schools have an inherent problem: they ARE schools, and a classroom setting does not easily convey the responsibilities and interactions that with a recording job, whether it is operating sound equipment or managing studio marketing.

As a result, when students leave recording school and go out into the recording industry their resumes do not count for much under the watchful eyes of the managers who are looking to hire people with more experience. Class-based projects may help people learn recording skills, but they do not mean much to employers who want those with a prove record in other studios, preferably working the similar projects to those the job entails. School projects rarely impress, and there often other applicants with more experience than recently graduated students. This makes it difficult for students to find even entry level recording positions. Add the high cost and time commitment of college, and suddenly the degree does not seem as worthwhile.

The gap between what recording studios are looking for and what colleges offer is filled by organizations, like Recording Connection, that specialize in hands-on training programs. The idea is that internships and field work are much more valuable in certain industries than the classic college education. These programs work to link mentors who hold positions in the recording field to students who are anxious to learn in practical scenarios.

In this type of training, students experience the demands of the job and the pressures put on the recording studios by the artists who record there. They also have the opportunity to meet artists they may have heard of and establish valuable contacts in the industry. The program is often only two years or so in length, and when students graduate they can claim real work with a real studio on their resumes. In the long run, these apprenticeship programs may be more worthwhile than a university idea of a recording school.