Where to?

October 11, 2005 5:51 PM

I'm considering taking a year of Recording Arts at a college in Toronto or Montreal next year before going to University for my B.A. My school's guidance people are remarkably unhelpful, can you offer advice in choosing the school for me, or even if this is the right decision?

This is practical stuff I want to know for plenty of reasons. There is also a good lot I want to learn from a university (languages, philosophy, linguistics, literature...) but I think I'd like to get the practical stuff out of the way so I can put it to good use during my years at university.

I know of Trebas Institute and RAC. If you've attended either of these schools and can offer your knowledge of them, that would be great. If you know of other such schools in either Toronto or Montreal that would be good for me that also would be great.

I know that the culminating project in Trebas' program is the recording of an album's worth of music which is a great bonus because I play in a band and we'd all love to record in a pro setting and get a great sounding record. This has a lot to do with why I'm interested in these courses.

Also, is there any reason this isn't such hot idea? If you have any grounds for discouraging me from getting into this, I'd like to hear from you too.

Thanks.

posted by Evstar to Education (5 answers total)

Best answer: I would do an extensive search on Trebas if I were you. I've read countless articles on their shady practices over the past decade. If memory serves me right they've more than once been sued by students and staff. I would be especially wary if you plan on getting financial assistance. Trebas has a track record of lying to students about eligibility for monies as well as loan terms and such. I'm pretty positive that NOW has written 2 or 3 exposes about them since 1992 or so--I'd start there.

I know nothing of RAC.
posted by dobbs at 5:55 PM on October 11, 2005

Response by poster: That's a very good start. I will look a little further into that, but I'm leaning towards ruling them out already. I'd love it if a Trebas alumni or student could elaborate on that.
posted by Evstar at 6:06 PM on October 11, 2005

Consider going straight to university but choosing a school that has new media, acoustics, communication, or radio journalism courses. Volunteer (or work) for the campus radio station. Intern at local recording studios, radio stations or the like. Take part in co-op and get paid work experience. If, at the end of your degree, you still want to do recording arts, you can do a recording arts program. That way, when you're ready to go to work, you'll have a degree, work experience, and *recent* experience with recording arts training.
posted by acoutu at 10:31 PM on October 11, 2005

I have only ever heard wonderful things about RAC. Had I the money (and the willingness to live in what is essentially the back of beyond for the time required) I'd go there in a shot. I've not heard of shady practices per se at Trebas, but they do go for a hard sell to get students, and I've heard a sort of general dissatisfaction with them.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 11:19 PM on October 11, 2005

Response by poster: These are good responses, though conflicting. I should have mentioned before that one reason I think I should do college first is that presumably it would be easier to get accepted into a highly reputable university (UofT, McGill) after having done well at another post-secondary school.
I'm pretty confident I could do much better in a recording arts program where I would be stimulated by the subject matter, rather than hoping for an 83% high school average where the courses bore me to shits (with a couple exceptions) and I have a hard time staying focused on anything.
posted by Evstar at 4:02 AM on October 12, 2005