Protecting My Precious Berklee Catalog Year – Part 1 (I Gotta Go Part Time)

September 24, 2013

a picture of the coffee station in the morning in an apartment building
As we talk about my swanky apartment in this post, here’s a pic I snapped when I thought, “look where I live!” (They give us marshmallows and whipped cream at the free coffee station downstairs.)

Picking up from yesterday

I learned I had to take at least one class in the spring to keep my precious catalog year. Now I just had to figure out how I was gonna do it.

If I were to go to school full-time in the spring, it would cause me all kinds of problems.

For one, I’d have to borrow a wild amount of money to go to school full-time in a different state. Not cool.

For another, I am actively seeking programs at traditional colleges (since, as I mentioned, the only time a BS or BA is semi-readily available to me is before I get a BM).

Now, if I apply to Yale or Brown right now, saying I’m ready to move toward a more traditional degree, and they see I haven’t been to music school in four years, okay. But if I apply to those schools with a transcript in progress – what does that say? It would be a complicated thing to try to explain.

The third way full-time school would affect me – and to me, this is possibly the most important – I would lose my apartment!

I’ve mentioned that I have the greatest apartment in the universe. We have a pool, a gym, two jacuzzis, a lounge, security, convenience, everything.

Because of the specific apartment I have, we are not allowed to have everyone living in our unit be a full-time student. My roommate is in a doctoral program. So if I become a full-time student as well, I lose the apartment.

the empty gym in my building
…and here’s a shot of our sweet gym

(Technically there are possibly some ways around this, such as adding someone to the lease. However, any way around it adds complication to my life, my living situation, and my roommate’s life. (Plus it adds a lot of paperwork and general hassle.))

Our leasing office doesn’t love multiple roommate additions/subtractions in a year. I just switched roommates during the lease renewal in late July/early August. I want the office to be in love with our unit, not annoyed by us.)

It’s possible to work around the apartment thing, but it’s not a wonderful choice. Going full-time is the absolute last resort.

There are limited options that allow you to go part-time at Berklee. I’ll get into those tomorrow.

I'd love to hear from you! So whaddya say?