columbia
4matt-
i graduated from columbia's sound program this year. my concentration was in systems design but i did take some classes in the recording and acoustics programs as well.
in the end i was pretty dissapointed with the program.
when you start out, they make you take some basic courses covering physics, electronics and some audio basics --- they're all relevant but suffer from what i consider the biggest problem with the school...in my opinion they tried to "dumb down" everything, which made things go very slowly and in the end you didnt really learn THAT much. i guess that is an effect of having such low standards for admissions.. in essence, the electronics and physics courses ended up being like a review from my senior year of high school. and in order to really learn stuff i had to go out on my own and read further in each book and so forth. i'm not suggesting that i shouldnt do that, but i felt that the classes could have covered much more if they treated college students like college students. (a great example of this was a class i took as a senior where my 'sound system design' teacher spent a class going over basic geometry and algebra to prepare us for predicing speaker coverage)
as far as the strictly audio classes went, those suffered from the fact that a lot of the teachers are "working proffesionals" --- columbia prides themselves on the fact that their teachers are active in the field, but they also pride themselves on not teaching equipment, but instead theory.
its kind of a weird situation cuz you dont have "hands on" cuz they want you to learn theory, but they dont bring in people who can properly teach theory (and half of them spending class talking about how when they entered the industry, they started as roadies and they dont know theory and all that stuff is bullshit etc etc) so in the end you have a real confusing situation.
they arent very coherent with the classes, as you will take two different courses with teachers talking about the same principles and give two different explanations ---
with the lack of hands on teaching, they encourage students to take internships for an opportunity to finally get some experience. however, their original internship coordinator [who did an amazing job] left about two years ago and the internship program has exploded into a mess.
in the end i found that 2 or 3 teachers REALLY knew what they were doing, those guys had classes that genuinely challenged me and taught me a lot...the rest were a joke, teaching me nothing that reading an article in EQ or EM or Pro Sound News couldnt have for $3 in a half hour.
mind you that i was not in the recording concentration and only took a few of those classes, so i might not be your best source (if recording is your interest). i also know that they are "trying" to upgrade the program, they just moved to a new building and seem to be getting lots of new equipment...
andyk
i graduated from columbia's sound program this year. my concentration was in systems design but i did take some classes in the recording and acoustics programs as well.
in the end i was pretty dissapointed with the program.
when you start out, they make you take some basic courses covering physics, electronics and some audio basics --- they're all relevant but suffer from what i consider the biggest problem with the school...in my opinion they tried to "dumb down" everything, which made things go very slowly and in the end you didnt really learn THAT much. i guess that is an effect of having such low standards for admissions.. in essence, the electronics and physics courses ended up being like a review from my senior year of high school. and in order to really learn stuff i had to go out on my own and read further in each book and so forth. i'm not suggesting that i shouldnt do that, but i felt that the classes could have covered much more if they treated college students like college students. (a great example of this was a class i took as a senior where my 'sound system design' teacher spent a class going over basic geometry and algebra to prepare us for predicing speaker coverage)
as far as the strictly audio classes went, those suffered from the fact that a lot of the teachers are "working proffesionals" --- columbia prides themselves on the fact that their teachers are active in the field, but they also pride themselves on not teaching equipment, but instead theory.
its kind of a weird situation cuz you dont have "hands on" cuz they want you to learn theory, but they dont bring in people who can properly teach theory (and half of them spending class talking about how when they entered the industry, they started as roadies and they dont know theory and all that stuff is bullshit etc etc) so in the end you have a real confusing situation.
they arent very coherent with the classes, as you will take two different courses with teachers talking about the same principles and give two different explanations ---
with the lack of hands on teaching, they encourage students to take internships for an opportunity to finally get some experience. however, their original internship coordinator [who did an amazing job] left about two years ago and the internship program has exploded into a mess.
in the end i found that 2 or 3 teachers REALLY knew what they were doing, those guys had classes that genuinely challenged me and taught me a lot...the rest were a joke, teaching me nothing that reading an article in EQ or EM or Pro Sound News couldnt have for $3 in a half hour.
mind you that i was not in the recording concentration and only took a few of those classes, so i might not be your best source (if recording is your interest). i also know that they are "trying" to upgrade the program, they just moved to a new building and seem to be getting lots of new equipment...
andyk
columbia
8personally, if i were you, i would take a small portion of the tuition money, buy some gear and do it guerilla-style for a few years, building up your skills and (possibly) your reputation as an engineer. record people for free or cheap for a while.
if you go to recording school, once you get out, you will still have to get real world experience and build up some kind of word of mouth demand, and at that point you would have spent a lot of money and valuable time taking classes that don't really translate into anything "marketable".
right now is honestly a pretty bad time to consider getting into engineering as a career. with the low low cost of equipment, bands are recording themselves. so if you want to get into it, make sure you like it enough to do it as a hobby, and have some other skills you can turn into a job.
none of the engineers i know and respect went to engineering school. many went to college, but none went to recording school.
if you go to recording school, once you get out, you will still have to get real world experience and build up some kind of word of mouth demand, and at that point you would have spent a lot of money and valuable time taking classes that don't really translate into anything "marketable".
right now is honestly a pretty bad time to consider getting into engineering as a career. with the low low cost of equipment, bands are recording themselves. so if you want to get into it, make sure you like it enough to do it as a hobby, and have some other skills you can turn into a job.
none of the engineers i know and respect went to engineering school. many went to college, but none went to recording school.
columbia
9tw,
columbia is a college - not strictly a recording school...it is a four year program and you do still have to take your typical non-audio classes in order to graduate.
andyk
columbia is a college - not strictly a recording school...it is a four year program and you do still have to take your typical non-audio classes in order to graduate.
andyk
tw wrote:none of the engineers i know and respect went to engineering school. many went to college, but none went to recording school.
columbia
10My experience at Columbia was kind of spotty. It might be different now, but I think Andteater is on the mark.
The classes and faculty were pretty unorganized. On many occasions I'd take a class that ended up being nothing like the course description. I'm not talking about unexpected
facets of a subject, rather a completely different subject. One time it really
pissed me off was when I took "studies in transducer theory." This class was
described as a study in all transducers (speakers, pickups, dynamic,
ribbon, and condenser mics, etc.). I was excited to learn how different mics
worked so I signed up. It started off talking about speaker testing and
design. This was great, it looked like we were going into great detail. I got
a little suspicious when there was no mention of learning about other
transducers. I asked my instructor about this and he informed me
that we would be learning about (his specialty) speaker testing and design
only! Imagine my surprise. Thanks to Columbia College's ingenious money making
policy of charging you full-whack for a class you want to drop out of after the
second session, I was stuck (most schools give you a rebate relative to how much you've attended).
The part time "working professional/teachers" were a bummer. They all seem to have their own view of how the world turns. They contradicted each other, didn't know each other, and vaguely stuck to the program. They did have some experience to share, and being able to mess around with real studio equipment was important. When I was there it wasn't very tech oriented. It seems they've improved that. The teachers who were full time (less than a third of them) seemed to know what they were talking about. Acoustics is something you can misunderstand easily if you try researching it on your own ( I ‘know enough to be dangerous'). It's handy to have good teacher to talk with. There are specific jobs you can learn how to do at school that have an immediate application to real world work. Although I never want to do this, I learned how to do a quick commercial spots for TV and radio. I could have done that if I just wanted to make a lot of money.
As far as recording music is concerned. No one is going to hire you to record their album because you went to Columbia/Fullsail/whoever. You need to be qualified, but not certified. For most people, school is the best way to get raw facts, and hands on experience.
Columbia can do this (just double check on things now and then). My guess is if you're life's dream is to record music, you're doing it already.
The classes and faculty were pretty unorganized. On many occasions I'd take a class that ended up being nothing like the course description. I'm not talking about unexpected
facets of a subject, rather a completely different subject. One time it really
pissed me off was when I took "studies in transducer theory." This class was
described as a study in all transducers (speakers, pickups, dynamic,
ribbon, and condenser mics, etc.). I was excited to learn how different mics
worked so I signed up. It started off talking about speaker testing and
design. This was great, it looked like we were going into great detail. I got
a little suspicious when there was no mention of learning about other
transducers. I asked my instructor about this and he informed me
that we would be learning about (his specialty) speaker testing and design
only! Imagine my surprise. Thanks to Columbia College's ingenious money making
policy of charging you full-whack for a class you want to drop out of after the
second session, I was stuck (most schools give you a rebate relative to how much you've attended).
The part time "working professional/teachers" were a bummer. They all seem to have their own view of how the world turns. They contradicted each other, didn't know each other, and vaguely stuck to the program. They did have some experience to share, and being able to mess around with real studio equipment was important. When I was there it wasn't very tech oriented. It seems they've improved that. The teachers who were full time (less than a third of them) seemed to know what they were talking about. Acoustics is something you can misunderstand easily if you try researching it on your own ( I ‘know enough to be dangerous'). It's handy to have good teacher to talk with. There are specific jobs you can learn how to do at school that have an immediate application to real world work. Although I never want to do this, I learned how to do a quick commercial spots for TV and radio. I could have done that if I just wanted to make a lot of money.
As far as recording music is concerned. No one is going to hire you to record their album because you went to Columbia/Fullsail/whoever. You need to be qualified, but not certified. For most people, school is the best way to get raw facts, and hands on experience.
Columbia can do this (just double check on things now and then). My guess is if you're life's dream is to record music, you're doing it already.
Greg Norman FG