Career Help

[tunks14]

I am having a tough time finding out what I need to do to get a job working with surround sound systems(e.g. Movie Theater Surround Sound, Concert Set-up, Home Theater Surround Sound)
I am open for any advice. I just want a career that has something to do with the technical aspect surround sound systems.

[Pano]

Welcome to the forum. Good question and I'm glad you asked it here. There are many pros on this forum.

Speaking for myself, I just got out there and did it. No formal training or education. Just willing to work hard, be on time and learn. A lot of crap jobs for little or no pay, long hours, hard work. Actually having a desire to work and wanting to do better than average counts for a lot.

Some of the highly technical stuff requires a degree, but the grunt work does not. Pushing boxes, pulling cables, babysitting equipment, loading trucks. By being around it, you'll start to learn it. Listen to what the old guys have to say. Take their theories with a grain of salt (they're often wrong) but take their practical advice as golden. Good practice will take you far.

Read. Read a lot. All the technical stuff is in books. Study them.

Find a company who does what you want to do and get hired on. Do anything you can get a job doing - even if it's sweeping floors. You may be a grunt for years, but it's how you learn and how all the old guys got there too.

[Johno]

I am not sure that the opportunities that Pano and I had when we were young are around today. Seems to me that even for low level jobs most of the people ahead of you in the queue have degrees.

My recommendation is to somehow find a way to extend your education. That probably means night school. At the end of it you will have a piece of paper, some knowledge and most importantly a bunch of friends and contacts who can be a source of information about who is doing what in your field. Many jobs (some say most) are filled without the need to advertise.

[TheSeekerr]

I'd suggest heading off on a tangent for a bit...in my experience, it's quite easy to get a foothold in live audio production - concerts, plays, musicals. Along the way you'll pick up experience and contacts, and it's usually the contacts who'll give you a path to where you want to go.

[Pano]

Yes indeed! That's how I got started.

[tunks14]

I should have added that I am attending college right now majoring in broadcasting. Does that open up any other possibilities..

[Pano]

Yes, a lot. As Johno says, these day the guys who get hired usually have degrees. They still don't know nothin', but they have degrees. It will get you in the door and probably higher up the grunt ladder.

Your training will also make it easier for you to understand and cope with what's going on - thus move into better jobs faster. Not a bad thing.

[Bigun]

if you can, look into getting a summer or coop position at a major surround sound equip company - it never hurts to have a well known company name on your resume after your degree. it was very valuable for starting my career in semiconductors to have spent a year at IBM.