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University Senior, depression or senioritis.
Hey Ashtray
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hey guys, I'm in my last year of my undergrad, studying jazz performance as a horn player. I'm one of the better musicians here, I get good grades and do good work, and up until this year I practiced an appropriate amount. This semester I've been pretty apathetic about the whole music thing, feeling as though I don't really want be here anymore and that I'm just going through the motions to finish the degree. I haven't really been practicing at all, and I feel guilty about that but at the same time I'm caring less and less. I might just be burnt out, or lazy or what have you, but it's starting to get me really down.
I'm not afraid of what's going to happen after university, I know how to make money, and I know that I'll figure something out. I guess I'm just wondering if it's pretty common to get to the end of a degree and kind of realize that you don't really like what you're doing or that you don't think you're good enough. They guilt cycle is frustrating, and it's also frustrating that instead of working hard to get over my problems, I get pretty easily defeated and end up not doing anything, or going out instead of doing work. So there's a lot of questions in this post, and some of them are specific to studying music, or I guess any creative field, and then some are just general 4th year questions.
Any thoughts are cool, and feel free to ask questions if this isn't very clear (it probably isn't).
I'm not afraid of what's going to happen after university, I know how to make money, and I know that I'll figure something out. I guess I'm just wondering if it's pretty common to get to the end of a degree and kind of realize that you don't really like what you're doing or that you don't think you're good enough. They guilt cycle is frustrating, and it's also frustrating that instead of working hard to get over my problems, I get pretty easily defeated and end up not doing anything, or going out instead of doing work. So there's a lot of questions in this post, and some of them are specific to studying music, or I guess any creative field, and then some are just general 4th year questions.
Any thoughts are cool, and feel free to ask questions if this isn't very clear (it probably isn't).
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I graduate in about a month and I'm feeling the same way. You start to feel exhausted and you want the damn thing to be over finally.
You gotta just power through it. If you live in the USA, take next week (Thanksgiving Break) and use it to recharge your batteries. Just remember that you'll be done soon enough.
* Make time to work. It would be a shame to mess things up when you will have put in thousands of hours and thousands of dollars into earning your degree. It can be hard, but you have to buckle down and try to grit through things. There are assignments and things I half-assed in my last year and still got decent grades, but I know I could have done better. Don't let your own personal standards slip if you can avoid it. Its dangerously easy to get complacent when you can coast through on talent. Ask yourself how you'll feel about your performance when you look back on things in five years.
*While making time to work is important, try to schedule enough recreational time too. Balance!
* Try to focus on the future, and start planning all the things you want to do after you graduate, maybe having a sense of looking forward to things will help. Whether its moving somewhere, going into a certain field of work, or take a year off to backpack around Bhutan or whatever.
* If you're down and its interfering with your work, take advantage of the free or low cost counselling service your school probably has. This is a very common phenomenon and school counsellors will have lots of experience helping people through it. If you have professors you have good relationships with, you may also want to try talking to them.
* Do the normal stuff to fend of depression/burn out. Exercise, talk to friends and family about how you're doing, try to eat well, etc.
* Realize that even if you don't end up working in the field of your degree, having successfully earned a degree will be a major positive in your life.
Living in Boston, and being in a number of bands over the years, I've met a good deal of Berklee (College of Music) students that find themselves wasting away long before their Senior year because they lack the creative drive to compose their own music, yet have also grown sick of following the instruction of others. Some drop out and pursue another path, some realize the problem is the instrument, and some just shit their pants and get addicted to heroin.
Now, not to get all sensitive/new agey, but do you feel that you're able to express yourself with your chosen art? Considering your major, I would imagine improvisation is at least a part of the curriculum and certainly composition as well—do you enjoy these things?
Honestly, I don't really want to support the notion that getting depressed in your Senior year is just how it goes, but obviously higher learning gets stressful to an extreme degree and can cause mental strife. Corvus has really sound advice, especially if you're able to determine that you are, or approximately are, genuinely depressed (not just colloquially "bummed").
Mostly I would suggest, as an artist, that you try and reach an honest assessment of how you feel about that art. Sometimes a change is necessary. Sometimes picking up a hobby (or 2nd instrument) can reawaken the joy in what you're "supposed" be doing.
I guess it's sort of reassuring to know I'm not the only one wringing my hands over this kind of thing. I suppose it's sort of hard to see your life turning into something else and where you'll be in even just a year when, up to this point, all we've ever done is be students, you know?
It seems like this hits student artists pretty hard in general. All the seniors around me are pretty depressed.
I'm graduating in less than 3 weeks, and I just feel apathetic about everything.
Anyway, yeah, I'm totally ashamed of my reel; I think I'd do better with comics or something. Girl stress is out to murder me too. If I don't murder the douchebag guy who lives across from me first. (UGH, how disgustingly embarrassing that something of that nature is bothering me at all.)
Heh, well, as they say... 'I go to art school, therefore... I HAVE MORE HOMEWORK THAN YOU.' D=
I'm at NYU, concentrating in animation for real-time implementation. I'm working on a browser-based virtual world for now (sort of like Second Life) but just tonight I got an email from someone at a major publisher... fingers crossed!
Want to do a reel crit? I'll show you mine if you show me yours
ontopic: I'm a believer that life only really gets harder. So when I feel down, my attitude is: "Man the fuck up, you're in a protected environment where it's okay to make shitty art. Enjoy it while it lasts."
Do you play any music outside of uni? Just for fun?
*You mentioned you're a horn player, but horn could be any number of things... I picked James cos he plays just about anything awesomely and it was a good way to cover my bases. Feel free to replace with you're idol.
I used to be super-motivated, but as some others here mention... working on my senior thesis and assignments feels like a pain in the ass....
I just try to turn it into something i do like working on... telling myself to stop whining, be a man and get on with it. Surely people less competent than you/ me have passed the course in the past. lesser qualified people have succeeded, so why shouldn't i?
And is the feeling you're not good enough at your art to make a living out of it common? GAWD YES (i hope so).
So basically SUCK IT UP seems to be the most appropriate piece of advice here, because honestly, who gets anywhere without doing stuff they don't want to do?
Thanks everyone, it's good stuff. I'm in a practice room right now, actually. So there's some progress.
may I ask which school you're in, and if you remember, what were initial auditions like? (if there were any)
also as a suggestion, if you can recall how you were feeling when you were about to go to music school maybe you can rekindle your own excitement?
Most require demonstration of scale knowledge (major, melodic minor, harmonic minor and the modes) and then some varying styles of tunes. You'll probably be asked to play an uptempo, a latin, and a ballad from memory, but this all depends on the school.