u/Snifferfrog15

Hey y'all, for a while I've been strongly considering becoming a Naval Aviator. For some background, I'm (nearly) 26 I have a degree in music education (3.91 GPA) and have been an elementary music teacher for 3 years now. I got married last year and the teacher salary is starting to show its limits. I considered doing this year's board and starting OCS end of this year / beginning of next year but we decided that we just needed more time to make the decision and prepare given that it's a ~10 year commitment that will likely put a lot of strain on our marriage and while the money and benefits will be great for starting a family, the deployments will obviously lead to me being a less present father than I would otherwise like to be.

Naval Aviation has been the idea since it leads to a very lucrative career once out of the Navy (also its fucking awesome) but the 10 year commitment, long deployments, and current state of the world has led to us seeking other possibilities.

The military is still our dominant prospect but I'm curious if y'all can shed any light on what other military pathways could lead to a similarly lucrative post-military career and with a potentially shorter commitment (even if just by a few years).

We're still prepared to go ahead with the Naval Aviator path in a year's time but we just want to feel as secure as we can in whatever decision we make, especially given that whatever we decide will be a MAJOR commitment.

I'd be happy to hear any advice y'all have; also any anecdotes from Naval Aviators about your experiences would be great to hear. Thank y'all!

So I’m looking into getting my foot in the door with being a freelance audio technician but I’m not sure exactly what the best way to do that is or if my qualifications are quite up to snuff yet.

I have my degree in music education and have been working full-time as an elementary music teacher for the past 3 years; I enjoy it but want to try getting into a career where I can grow my salary a bit more feasibly and gain more connections within the music/audio industry. I’ve also been working part-time as an audio technician at my church for about 2.5 years, have an amateur in-home studio, and am decently trained in Logic Pro X and Adobe Premier.
I’ve also grown up around a lot of audio technology as my dad composes, arranges, and produces music (freelance) and have been performing on a multitude of instruments for over 20 years. 

Do you think this is an adequate background for beginning a career in freelance audio work? I’d like to spend more time gaining experience through my church as my boss tends to take care of all of the major audio bugs and glitches so I know that I at least don’t feel entirely confident to solve every problem that can come up. I want to at least “intern” under him this summer; do you think that I will gain enough experience from something like that or should I shop around as well?

I’ve already gotten some positive feedback from some of the Event/Technology groups in my area (Chattanooga) but I’m worried about feeling like a fish out of water being that I have limited professional experiences and lack a degree in this field.

Any advice or suggestions?

Also any estimates for what I should expect to earn would also be helpful.

Thank y’all!