COMPOSER SABRINA PENA YOUNG | MUSIC TECHNOLOGY | FILM | CLASSICAL | OPERA

You just enrolled for your first semester as a music major or minor . After being slammed with half a dozen ensembles , requirements to practice over six hours a day, hundreds of hours studying music history and music theory , you begin to wonder why you decided to study music in the first place. Then you remember: Music is fun! It is? To Survive Music Schools you must learn to HATE MUSIC, the fall in LOVE with it all over again! You heard me. Music school makes you hate, absolutely hate music. Why? Chances are, when you first starting playing your instrument, singing, or wrote your first song, you were overjoyed with the incredible fulfillment that only a good concert, successful practice, or good composition could bring.  NEED HELP WITH YOUR MUSIC? LET ME LISTEN! You didn't sit after a concert thinking, "Hmm, I really enjoyed how that deceptive cadence truly brought out the incredible timbre in the woodwinds" or "I knew I should have used a ...

Academic Insider: What You Don't Know About Writing a College Essay   Getting an a is Easier Than You Thought!  Find out what you didn't know about writing a college essay. Learn these simple tips and earn an A! I have taught at the university level for about a decade and have graded hundreds, if not thousands, of college essays. Earning a high grade on your academic essay does not usually involve writing a Shakespearean level paper or a professional dissertation worthy of Oxford Press. Instead, follow these simple writing tips to ace your next college essay. Read Your Syllabus This may seems simple, but I don't know how many papers that I've graded that have did not follow simple instructions. For example, if an assignment needs to be an essay, then write an essay not a question and answer format. If the topic is the battle of Waterloo , don't jump into your personal political opinions on the latest presidential election, no matter how relevant you thi...

5 Tips on How To Ask Teachers to Revise Your Grades After teaching everything from early childhood to college for the last fifteen plus years, I thought it would be helpful to share some tips on asking your teacher to revise your grade.  1. Read the Syllabus If the assignment was writing to write a ten page essay and you submitted a 200 word blurb worthy of Facebook, then realize that your best bet is to read the syllabus carefully next time and submitting the right assignment. If the wording was ambiguous, then ask politely if you could resubmit your assignment with the correct requirements, maybe for partial credit. 2. Don't Plagiarize Believe it or not, your professor will not believe that you "accidentally" copied the entire Wikipedia entry on Napoleon Bonaparte. If it is a formatting issue, then be sure to read the class requirements on proper citation . Some professors are real sticklers for correct citation, checking every comma, and some just want to ...

Grades and Stress: College Professors were Students Once Upon a Time First off, full disclosure: I was once a college student . Shocking, yes, I know, but every professor that you know has sat in your shoes in some form or another. Now you might be studying online while juggling work and family, or maybe you go part time or to a community college or are studying something entirely different than your professor, but the reality is that when it comes down to stressing out about grades, every professor has sat in your shoes, whether it was a few years ago or during the Stone Age.  What does that mean for you, the college student?  Most likely your professor has rose-colored memories about their time in college, especially those that chose to pursue their careers in academia and higher learning. Your professor was the kid in college that not only enjoyed learning about business or humanities or biology or computer science so much that s/he decided to spend the rest of t...