Here's the problem with school. What gets you ahead in school almost never gets you ahead in other settings. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with this, unless you don't realize it and think you're going to succeed by beating other people upside the head with your Phi Beta Kappa key.

Man, you people went to some shitty schools.

One of the things I love about teaching music at the university is that the relationship between the academy and the craft of music has a long history of mutual appreciation. The things that make a stellar 1st violin in a university symphony are the same things that make a stellar 1st violin in any symphony.

As a result, I feel like we graduate students who have been well trained and well equipped in things that actually matter to the career they've chosen. As an added benefit, they embrace that training with curiosity and passion - nobody becomes a music major because they're parents made them, or because it's a fallback degree, but they really wanted to study accounting.

That said, one of the mantras around our school of music is "Stop thinking like a music student, and start thinking like a musician." A very useful reminder.

To be fair though smooth, I think music and other true arts are a bit different to other degrees such as law or accounting for example.

It's a different world.