This is a weird question to ask, though I've seen it lots of times on the forums. I decided to post it myself because my situation is a bit unique.
I'm 16 and a junior in high school. However, I recently found out that because of some extra high school credits I got while I was in middle school and some advanced classes, I have enough credits to technically be a senior and graduate this year if I chose to, still at the age of 16. I have a 3.0 GPA (3.3 or so weighted), and if you consider my academics, it would be a 2.8 with roughly a 3.0 unweighted. Not the best, I understand. However, my test scores are generally through the roof (I scored something like the 95th percentile on my PSAT) and I know that with a few weeks studying, I could probably do very well on the SAT and ACT.
The question is, if I graduate early, what do I do? Here's where music comes in. I'm in what I believe to be a very talented alternative rock band, heavy enough to satisfy people of many genres, yet mainstream enough to be played on the radio (as opposed to, say, death metal). We've only been at it since this year, but we're about to go in and record a whole album out of pocket. Our singer is 20 and has no obligations, guitarist and drummer our juniors, and the other guitarist is a Sophomre in an International Baccaleureate program that takes up most of his weekdays, but will have him eliminating something like 15 college credits by the time he's graduated.
I recently had a long talk with my parents where they urged me to follow my dreams as long as I was responsible about it. My dad basically told me that if there's any time to take a crazy risk, it's now while I'm not even technically college-aged and still living with my parents. They both want me to finish high school (not a problem) but after that I'm stuck. Any college or university that I went off to might interrupt my time with the band. If the band fails and falls apart, I'll have to be OK with that, but i feel like we've at least got potential, and I want to nurture that and take the risk while it's there.
I'm considering several universities at the same time because I want to be responsible with what I'm doing. For a while, Full Sail was my dream school, but it's very expensive and I've heard a lot of scary things about it. I'm looking into taking Full Sail's Music Business course online for two years while I work on the band, and if we're still going strong but not quite there, there are a few local studios I'd consider getting a job/interning at to build my skill set while still staying local. There's also a local university (Jacksonville University) that's supposed to have several fairly good music programs. I would probably go to JU in the event that I was no longer with the band, but still wanted to pursue a career in music (I do.)
I've kind of rambled up to this point, but I'm just a little stuck on what direction I should take. I know that my chances of making it with a modern rock band are something like 1 in 1000, but my parents make a great choice for going at it now while there's still a safety net. My dad decided to take a very similar risk and leave his job to start his own business designing software. He's told me that if I needed something to fall back on after exhausting all of my music resources, he could teach me how to program within a year or so and I could make a fairly decent living ($25 an hour) starting out, and I could also work for his company for about 20 hours a week while I spend the rest of the time pursuing other options. I'm fairly good with computers and there's a very large market for computer programmers here, but that's not what's in my heart. I want to do something with music. I have looked at managing, playing, recording, teaching, engineering, and composing, but above all I would love if the band were to succeed.... even though I know the chances are so small and I'd likely have to get another job after that stopped happening, unless we made a fairly lucrative amount of money that I invested well. I also know the chances of that happening are even smaller than being able to do it full time at all.
So, yeah, long thread. Nobody can tell me what to do, but I would love to hear input from everybody here.
I'm 16 and a junior in high school. However, I recently found out that because of some extra high school credits I got while I was in middle school and some advanced classes, I have enough credits to technically be a senior and graduate this year if I chose to, still at the age of 16. I have a 3.0 GPA (3.3 or so weighted), and if you consider my academics, it would be a 2.8 with roughly a 3.0 unweighted. Not the best, I understand. However, my test scores are generally through the roof (I scored something like the 95th percentile on my PSAT) and I know that with a few weeks studying, I could probably do very well on the SAT and ACT.
The question is, if I graduate early, what do I do? Here's where music comes in. I'm in what I believe to be a very talented alternative rock band, heavy enough to satisfy people of many genres, yet mainstream enough to be played on the radio (as opposed to, say, death metal). We've only been at it since this year, but we're about to go in and record a whole album out of pocket. Our singer is 20 and has no obligations, guitarist and drummer our juniors, and the other guitarist is a Sophomre in an International Baccaleureate program that takes up most of his weekdays, but will have him eliminating something like 15 college credits by the time he's graduated.
I recently had a long talk with my parents where they urged me to follow my dreams as long as I was responsible about it. My dad basically told me that if there's any time to take a crazy risk, it's now while I'm not even technically college-aged and still living with my parents. They both want me to finish high school (not a problem) but after that I'm stuck. Any college or university that I went off to might interrupt my time with the band. If the band fails and falls apart, I'll have to be OK with that, but i feel like we've at least got potential, and I want to nurture that and take the risk while it's there.
I'm considering several universities at the same time because I want to be responsible with what I'm doing. For a while, Full Sail was my dream school, but it's very expensive and I've heard a lot of scary things about it. I'm looking into taking Full Sail's Music Business course online for two years while I work on the band, and if we're still going strong but not quite there, there are a few local studios I'd consider getting a job/interning at to build my skill set while still staying local. There's also a local university (Jacksonville University) that's supposed to have several fairly good music programs. I would probably go to JU in the event that I was no longer with the band, but still wanted to pursue a career in music (I do.)
I've kind of rambled up to this point, but I'm just a little stuck on what direction I should take. I know that my chances of making it with a modern rock band are something like 1 in 1000, but my parents make a great choice for going at it now while there's still a safety net. My dad decided to take a very similar risk and leave his job to start his own business designing software. He's told me that if I needed something to fall back on after exhausting all of my music resources, he could teach me how to program within a year or so and I could make a fairly decent living ($25 an hour) starting out, and I could also work for his company for about 20 hours a week while I spend the rest of the time pursuing other options. I'm fairly good with computers and there's a very large market for computer programmers here, but that's not what's in my heart. I want to do something with music. I have looked at managing, playing, recording, teaching, engineering, and composing, but above all I would love if the band were to succeed.... even though I know the chances are so small and I'd likely have to get another job after that stopped happening, unless we made a fairly lucrative amount of money that I invested well. I also know the chances of that happening are even smaller than being able to do it full time at all.
So, yeah, long thread. Nobody can tell me what to do, but I would love to hear input from everybody here.
