LOST- Can’t afford- Need help on career/school choices
Hey all very new to this subreddit…Quick background. I come from a pretty standard conservatory musician lifestyle, but moved to SF to understand how tech interfaces with music. As a result I’ve also found an affinity of music copyright, content recognition, and metadata- now working in a music tech startup up as low level legal admin role. Working with technical people such as the data, software, and ML eng gave me an insight a world that i did not know about…Music information retrieval and fell in love with the concepts - and it all ties to my niche realm of humanities, musician ship and copyright law- especially with rise of AI.
That said last year I was fortunate enough to get into Georgia Institute of Technology (MS Music Technology) and NYU (MM Music Technology) with a plan to be in research groups relating to music cognition perception, audio content analysis/Music Info Reterival, and finally for my own personal practice creative technology sectors interfacing with music- say sound design, application design, systems designs. I had to let go of NYU..they were stubborn. But Ga tech allowed me to defer due to cost…and agreed to let me attend part time if i could find a full time remote or atl based role. now a year later my situation hasn’t gotten better- My job is REFUSING to let me move to Atlanta (im hybrid…even though my whole team is nYC) and no luck finding additional roles. I still can’t afford to go..which is heart breaking. Being SF i see the changes happening in all sectors and now I feel stuck..im giving myself a month to decide- do i take out loans or just let the opportunity go and see what else can be done…
Im reaching out to see if you all have any insight on what to do next if you were in my position? Are there alternative education route..should i just give up? TBH For the roles I want i don’t see any other alternative way to break into to the realm of real technical music technology that changes the world- think Dolby, apple, some streaming services that utilize music in everyday life…even med tech. They all seem to require advanced degrees…and very specific technical knowledge or at least to be able to speak the language…
Oh also I have undergrad loans..a lot..my family is/was not wealthy. Some people said maybe consider Europe..but is that any better? Particularly for my niche field.
Thanks all getting pretty desperate and sad here..i work incredibly hard to essentially pivot (albeit i have an advantage of the conservatory music background)