| I looked up the word "mentor" after
looking a ads from the "bad connection." If you don't know what
I'm talking about, read two past articles entitled "A
Better Connection, Part 1" and "A
Sham Is A Sham, Unless I Am..." A
mentor is a "a trusted counselor or guide." |
| Well that goes a long way towards
describing what I do for students at Recording Institute of Detroit.
|
| I have a lot of assistants, like a
placement director, instructors, admissions personnel. I use my
assistants to make sure that students in our Associate and our Recording
Engineer programs get good guidance and advice. I also get
personally involved. |
| Its usual for me to sit down with
individual students as they are close to finishing their program and
make sure that they are being helped in accomplishing the goals they set
for themselves in the field. I want to know a bunch of things like
what audio or music areas they want to work in, how they feel about
re-location and even their immediate financial need. The immediate
plans that will work for graduates will vary considerably depending if
they have mouths to feed or are more economically living with their
parents. |
| During my talk, I am trying to let
the student know what kind of plan of attack would work towards
achieving the goals. I'll also let the person know who they
contact to get started. Because I've been in the position I'm in
for over 26 years, I know a lot of people and sometimes (but not always)
I can recommend a new graduate to one or more of these people. I
then get with my placement director and I go over what kind of a
position would work for the soon-to-be graduate. |
| I also keep good track of students
academically progressing through the program with weekly meetings of the
instruction staff where we review the progress of our 75 attending
students. We keep the size of our student body small so that I, as
well as our other staff, can be personally involved in the success of
our graduates. It's financially tempting, but
educationally inadequate to lecture to 75 students at once. |
| Now that's what I call mentoring.
|
| Recording Institute Of Detroit
Quikstart TM Program |
| Normally I have a student for at
least 5 months in our Associate Recording Engineer Program. Its a
great program that covers all of the basics of recording and music but
goes on to make sure that the graduates have developed competencies at
these basics. |
| But we developed a Quikstudy program
for students who have a distance to travel for training. To
participate, the student studies the theory of recording though my
advanced web training service,
Alexander Magazine and
the CD that comes with the package. The student studies training
modules and takes online examinations to place out of nearly 4 months of
campus classes. With the initial study before attending they can
finish the program in just 5 weeks. |
| When a new Quikstudy student arrives
on campus we schedule at lot of intense training and have to begin the
serious mentoring right away. The things we have to arrange is as
follows: |
| 1.
Orientation Interview |
| 2. Three overview
classes on the basics of recording. (3.5 hours each class) |
| 3. Five MIDI production
classes. (3 hours per class) |
| 4. Five recording
competencies classes. (5 hours per class) |
| 5. Five introduction to
music theory classes (if the student doesn't place out of these
3.5 hour classes). |
| 6. Three computer
sequencing labs. ( 3 hours each) |
| 7. Up to a dozen other
recording & mixing labs. (2 - 4 hours each) |
| 8. Placement Department
and/or Administrative mentoring interview. |
|
| The first step to taking this
program, and getting our personal help on obtaining a lifetime career in
recording is to
purchase an
Alexander Magazine subscription and start the study guides for RID
students. You will want to stay in close
e-mail contact
with us as you begin your study. As soon as you have passed the
first online final examination (Pro Audio Specialist Exam), you
can sign up for and schedule the attendance for the Associate Recording
Engineer campus classes. |
| Not Sure |
| How you are going to get trained for
a lifetime career can be a big decision. If you need to be
convinced, a good way to start would be to purchase the new $69 Pro
Audio Specialist study package that I describe in the article,
Becoming A Pro At
Audio Inexpensively. |
| |
