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Will I be able to major in music and minor in psychology? If so what is the college process for that and how long will it take to accomplish?

I'm 10th grade and need help to set a career plan. I want to be a musician or musical therapist or teacher of sum sort. And the college i plan on going to is Berklee college of music. As of right now I sing, write my own songs, and produce music/beats for it to be recorded.

college-major psychology college-advice music music-industry musician singer college-minor singer-songwriter berklee
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Paul’s Answer

Congratulations on a very ambitious career goal! Your major/minor combination is less common, but certainly not rare - and a good idea in some ways!

I would suggest you do the best you can to narrow down your goal. The learning and career track for a music therapist is much more straightforward than a performing career. It would typically be something you’d see in a school that focuses in the medical field, but not always.

I mostly mention this because you mention Berklee as your school of choice. I assume you’ve been warned, admission to Berklee is HIGHLY competitive, and requires a performance audition. Unless you are an exceptional musician now, you may find admission to be very difficult. Also, Berklee doesn’t have a music therapy degree listed on their website.

I would suggest you expand your choices for possible schools, while narrowing down what it is you want to do. Best of luck.
Thank you comment icon Thank you for the advice. Aly
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Jessica’s Answer

You can definitely major in music and minor in psychology, but the school you choose has to have those options in order for you to do so. It doesn't seem like the Berklee college of music has psychology as an option so I would really ask yourself what your end goal us. Do you really want to perform and write music? Then maybe you should stick on that path and try to go to Berklee. Do you want to be a Music Therapist? Well, then there may be other schools you need to consider that offer both music and psychology OR that even offer their own music therapy programs. Think hard about what you want your future to look like. That will tell you what direction to take. Don't forget, though. If your dream is to be a famous singer/songwriter, social media is a great way to get your name out there and doing open mics, busking, and gigging are great ways to put in the work and practice to hopefully someday get noticed. You could always do music on the side if you want to study something to "fall back on" should the music thing not work out. You can still enjoy writing songs and performing even if just people in your home town hear it. I've been the lead singer and rhythm guitarist for rock bands since I was 16. I'm 32 now and still love to gig when I can, even though my day job is change management and graphic design. It takes up a lot of free time, but if it's your passion, it's worth it.
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Courtney’s Answer

For Music Therapy there are different paths you could take. I chose the path of going to a university that offered music therapy as a degree track, so my degree is Bachelors of Music with an emphasis in Music Therapy. My co-worker took the path of majoring in music and getting a minor in psychology, at a university that did not offer music therapy, and then completed a Music Therapy equivalency track at a university that offers Music Therapy. If you choose to do an equivalency you can either do a Bachelors or Masters equivalency.

Essentially, with an equivalency you knock out your music theory, ear training, music history, etc and all your English, math, sciences, etc and get your Bachelor’s degree. You would then transfer all of those credits and only take your core Music Therapy courses, clinical practicum, and internship to then be eligible to sit for boards.
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Katherine’s Answer

I actually ended up designing my own major (Individualized Studies) at Charter Oak State College, and so I included classes in music, business and psychology. It went along with the fact that I'd been teaching music since high school and I like to train my students to accompany and so on, so I was doing what might be called coaching as much as teaching sometimes, especially with older students. As it happened, I ended up learning more about performance psychology and concentrating on that in a way in my senior capstone project. So you could go with something like that if you choose, depending on the college you pick.
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