| My son is a junior cello performance major at Eastman. He adores his teacher and the high level of the other students there. He struggled some first semester freshman year with the roller coaster of being in such a high level environment. (How did I ever get admitted here? sort of thing.) He also struggled 2nd semester sophmore year because he was not advancing as much as he thought and had a lot of self doubt about his ability to "make it". He decided he wanted to double degree in poli sci so that "if the music thing falls through I can go to law school". Doing a double degree at Rochester is possible but difficult so he looked at transferring.
However, he finally realized it was foolish to leave the studio he was in and that UR has a top notch poli sci department. Right now he is feeling much more confident as a cellist and is starting to talk about grad school for music. He is not going to do the double degree but just minor in poli sci.
He likes Eastman a lot although he wishes that the 2 campuses were together and he didn't have to live with all music majors. His orchestra experience has been wonderful and he really enjoys the overall level of musicianship of the other students. His pianist is phenomenal. In addition to Eastman he was accepted at New England. He was waitlisted at Rice and CIM. He is very glad he chose the studio he is in. There is quite a bit of comraderie between the students and not much of the competition you hear about at conservatories. We have found he is much happier when he takes one or 2 non-music courses each semester and those he takes at the river campus. |