People can learn anywhere, anytime, if they work at it.
And if they don't work at it, they won't learn, no matter how much they pay.
Most working engineers have come up 'the hard way' working as (sometimes unpaid) gofers and set-up people, moving up to assistant engineer (often paid under the table and below minimum), finally 'breaking through' to the point where they can actually line up working gigs as engineers, usually temporary-project oriented work, of course, there aren't very many full-time audio production jobs and there are a whole lot of experienced engineers and production types out there.
The best gigs are in advertising or in-house production. Not that you'll be working on cool music. You won't be. It'll just be meat and potatoes library and loop work. But it might just allow you to pay for a modest apartment someplace. Top people make good money. But most ride the bus. And way too many sleep under bridges (not necessarily figuratively speaking).
You can learn in the school of hard knocks, but a lot of community and state schools have programs that attempt to impart as much knowledge as possible -- even if they are often stumped at providing meaningful professional experience -- since few of the instructors have ever worked in the real world. Ultimately, you'll still need to go out and scrounge around the real world to get real experience.
As others have no doubt noted, a lot of the commercial schools are bollocks.
There used to be a great website called fullsailsucks.com put up and maintained by former (and some current) Full Sail students (and at least one or two ex-instructors, as I recall). But FS sued them and one day they just disappeared.
The thing about joints like Full Sail is that they cost a huge amount of money and there are damn few jobs out there, compared to the number of people who graduate from those $30-$40K plus programs.
When I was going to school (two community college programs that, in the early 80's were the only certificating programs besides the venerable program at the University of Miami) there were a lot more engineering jobs and the studio scene was a lot healthier. But almost no one got gigs, and those who did still had to do unpaid 'hang time' waiting to get a chance to run for burgers or set up a few mic stands.
And that was then. Now, home studios, MIDI, and, especially looping softare and hardware have devastated that scene. Advertising work that used to be sent out for full studio sessions with highly paid union musicians and full studio staffs is now done in house at agencies by college interns.
If you're independently wealthy and you can afford to toss off 40 grand to learn a hobby, go for it.
Otherwise, think long and hard...
And if they don't work at it, they won't learn, no matter how much they pay.
Most working engineers have come up 'the hard way' working as (sometimes unpaid) gofers and set-up people, moving up to assistant engineer (often paid under the table and below minimum), finally 'breaking through' to the point where they can actually line up working gigs as engineers, usually temporary-project oriented work, of course, there aren't very many full-time audio production jobs and there are a whole lot of experienced engineers and production types out there.
The best gigs are in advertising or in-house production. Not that you'll be working on cool music. You won't be. It'll just be meat and potatoes library and loop work. But it might just allow you to pay for a modest apartment someplace. Top people make good money. But most ride the bus. And way too many sleep under bridges (not necessarily figuratively speaking).
You can learn in the school of hard knocks, but a lot of community and state schools have programs that attempt to impart as much knowledge as possible -- even if they are often stumped at providing meaningful professional experience -- since few of the instructors have ever worked in the real world. Ultimately, you'll still need to go out and scrounge around the real world to get real experience.
As others have no doubt noted, a lot of the commercial schools are bollocks.
There used to be a great website called fullsailsucks.com put up and maintained by former (and some current) Full Sail students (and at least one or two ex-instructors, as I recall). But FS sued them and one day they just disappeared.
The thing about joints like Full Sail is that they cost a huge amount of money and there are damn few jobs out there, compared to the number of people who graduate from those $30-$40K plus programs.
When I was going to school (two community college programs that, in the early 80's were the only certificating programs besides the venerable program at the University of Miami) there were a lot more engineering jobs and the studio scene was a lot healthier. But almost no one got gigs, and those who did still had to do unpaid 'hang time' waiting to get a chance to run for burgers or set up a few mic stands.
And that was then. Now, home studios, MIDI, and, especially looping softare and hardware have devastated that scene. Advertising work that used to be sent out for full studio sessions with highly paid union musicians and full studio staffs is now done in house at agencies by college interns.
If you're independently wealthy and you can afford to toss off 40 grand to learn a hobby, go for it.
Otherwise, think long and hard...
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