Grad­u­ate School Tips: The Mu­sic De­part­ment

For mu­sic stu­dents con­sid­er­ing grad­u­ate school, Bethel’s mu­sic fac­ulty of­fers some help­ful ad­vice. 

Pro­fes­sor of Mu­sic Reg Klopfen­stein, D.M., em­pha­sizes the need to pre­pare now while in un­der­grad­u­ate stud­ies. This cre­ates the foun­da­tion that stu­dents can es­tab­lish to do well in their grad­u­ate de­gree and in their jobs. This foun­da­tion in­cludes the op­por­tu­nity to or­ga­nize your life, find­ing what to pri­or­i­tize and what put by the way­side. 

“This may sound a sort of ob­vi­ous, but…the best thing you can do to pre­pare for grad school is to get the most out of your un­der­grad,” Klopfen­stein said 

Klopfen­stein also em­pha­sized an­other way for a mu­sic stu­dent to skill­fully mas­ter a mas­ter’s de­gree is by be­ing well-rounded while re­main­ing fo­cused and to spend time on the in­tan­gi­bles and all the nitty-gritty course work while be­ing honed in on prac­tic­ing one’s pri­mary in­stru­ment. This is il­lus­trated in Klopfen­stein’s ex­pe­ri­ence in grad­u­ate stud­ies. He fo­cused on per­cus­sion while tak­ing courses in mu­sic his­tory.  

“For my mas­ter’s de­gree, I just put lots of time in on my area while I soaked up every­thing I could…at In­di­ana Uni­ver­sity,” Klopfen­stein said.  

This con­trasts the story of As­so­ci­ate Pro­fes­sor of Mu­sic Rob Rhein, D.M.A. He grad­u­ated with a bach­e­lor’s de­gree in math, then went for his mas­ter’s later. Rhein told of a di­ag­nos­tic test that un­der­grad­u­ates must take to get into a mas­ter’s pro­gram. He said that much has changed since 1976 when he went into his pro­gram, but the process should work rel­a­tively the same. Rhein said they usu­ally give out a book to un­der­grad­u­ates who are look­ing to get into these schools. It is a re­fresher on any­thing that might be on the di­ag­nos­tic test.  

An en­cour­age­ment Rhein gave was to shore up any weak ar­eas you have. Rhein men­tioned hav­ing trou­ble with Mid­dle Ages and Re­nais­sance when go­ing into any mu­sic his­tory course in his mas­ter’s pro­gram.  

“Find a grad­u­ate school that is chal­leng­ing,” Rhein said, “but find a grad­u­ate school that needs warm bod­ies.” 

Pro­fes­sor of Mu­sic Vicky Warken­tien, D.M.M., en­cour­aged go­ing to a school that has fund­ing; be­ing able to earn schol­ar­ships and leave grad­u­ate school with­out debt is rec­om­mended.