# Back To Business As Usual... - Site: Analog Industries - Author: Chris Randall - Date: 2010-11-15 - URL: https://analogindustries.com/2010/11/back-to-business-as-usual/ I'm pleased to announce that the contract job I've been working on for the past several months is finished, and about to be released. When it is, you can find out what I've been up to that has kept me silent all summer. Suffice to say that of the several plates I was spinning for the last few months, most of them have been put away. A pleasant feeling. I am most assuredly of the "nothing ventured, nothing gained" school of thought (or "big risk, big reward," if you prefer a different banal aphorism) and feel that if you constantly work within your safe zone, it becomes increasingly difficult to set new goals that enrich society (or yourself, if that's your bag.) The best personal results come from accepting a challenge to do something that is beyond your skill level. Not too far beyond, though, as that leads to intense frustration, in my experience. So, for me at least, all creative endeavors are a balancing act between what I _think_ I'm able to accomplish and what I am _actually_ able to accomplish. The trick, as a self-educated person, is to know what the "actually" really is. I wonder if college affects this, since a college-educated person has a better handle on what they know, and thus what their capabilities are. No matter. My question is thus: do you follow my "damn the torpedoes" approach to life/creativity? Or do you work within defined boundaries to perfect what you know you can do? And so we can get some correlation, did you go to college? ## Comments (17) **MrBiggs** (2010-11-15): Damn the torpedoes, for sure. But I don't know if college-educated has anything to do with it. I think a college-educated person may have a better idea what they know from about the day after graduation to about three years later. But at some point choosing the safe route or the interesting/vaguely dangerous route is a function of something other than college. Over the weekend, I drilled seven nice big holes into a perfectly good Electro-Harmonix delay pedal and taught myself to solder and wire up jacks and switches. Now my delay pedal is clockable with my synth. Six weeks ago I could not have picked out a resistor from a capacitor. So your monday post resonates with me today... Congrats on finishing whatever it is you finished. **chaircrusher** (2010-11-15): I went to a lot of college -- first for a BA in English, second for a MS in Computer Science that I did while working full time. One shouldn't mistake what one should learn in college for what one actually learns in college. If you're lucky, you learn how to learn -- research, reasoning, extrapolation. In life those skills let you address questions that you don't know how to answer before they're asked. You also learn how to get mostly OK work done mostly on time. But there's nothing magic about college, and very little about the experience that can't be replicated by a dedicated autodidact with some native intelligence, self-discipline, and ambition. You can if -- like me -- you were an English major -- learn how to construct long sentences with a lot of polysyllabic words. But that, like the ability to roll a really good joint, is rather beside the point in life. **jed** (2010-11-15): Having gone to college may have had an impact on what I *thought* I knew... at least for a while. Now I see it had little actual bearing on what I *really* know (which is, like most people, very little). It also seems to have very little to do with me (or anyone else) knowing what we can actually accomplish on a schedule. Age and experience have much more to do with knowledge and wisdom than college. **boobs** (2010-11-15): i went to college. started out as a communications major and after a few courses i realized that it was a slimey bunch of bullshit so i switched to something i actually enjoyed and majored in history and got the hell out of there asap. i think the academic magic in college is when you are already really smart or driven and doing something like making robots at MIT or maybe learning to be a teacher or become something not self serving that requires training and experience like building irrigation/water filtration systems for 3rd world or becoming an engineer etc or something practical like that. there are a lot of people (too many) who go to college to become some kind of marketing/business consultant. ok.. i'll get off little soap box now.. personally, i like to think i "damn the torpedos" in life and guess i do go above my pay grade and rise to the challenge here and there. i've done that w/a handful of jobs and some of them worked out really well. i did have a chance to jump up a level as a recording engineer and take on a big project but i walked away because i realized i just didn't care enough anymore to do it well and i'd mentally 'checked out' and had no drive to do it regardless of how 'sexy' the job sounded. creatively, sure, i fall on my face all the time but on the way down it's pretty exciting. "sure, i'll DJ at our desert party for 2 hours. can i play richard devine?" "who's that?" "oh, you'll love it" the most fun i've had w/electronic music is jamming w/friends on machines w/o a rehearsal. everyone gets fed the same midi clock and the master presses play and then we play until the vibe is gone. done this a handful of times live in various places w/some great moments and a few train wrecks but overall people liked it and we had a great time. closest to jazz i've ever gotten. i recommend it. **studio nebula** (2010-11-15): I think how one approaches life is established before one reaches the usual college-going age. One might learn something about how one approaches life in college, but I don't think that college in itself is going to change it. --Adam **seancostello** (2010-11-15): I came out of college with a BA in Anthropology, and no sense of self-worth whatsoever. Being surrounded by a bunch of rich and confident assholes didn't help. The computer music department, at the time, was the best in the country (CCRMA), but the core classes were closed to everyone except classical music majors or electrical engineers. So I figured that, even though I was obsessed with computer music and the like, it just wasn't my fate to do that. Several years of obsessing over computer and electronic music later, and with the support of an awesome woman whom I later married, I said "fuck it." I talked my way into a yearlong computer music course at the University of Washington. In this case, college was useful for learning skills I was having problems learning on my own, but I chose to ignore the limitations that would have kept me from acquiring these skills (like, being an enrolled student). I gotta say that I don't think college had a positive effect on knowing what my abilities were. The academic sorts I deal with tend to treat me as a kind of freak show - one of them called me a "savant," which is the most back handed compliment I've ever received. Academia is very rigid, and if you don't fit precisely within an understandable niche, or if your aims don't coincide with the aims of the particular department, you're not going to get very far. Especially if you take other people's assessment of you to heart. So, I agree with your "damn the torpedos" approach. I've been following this for the last few years. Which is frustrating, as programming does not come naturally to me at all. Algorithms are easy for me, but the GUI design and framework stuff is a total pain in the ass (as Chris and Adam know all too well). I've set my goals too far beyond my skill level, which is maddening at times, but you just gotta go for it. And congratulations on finishing up your big project. **jtolbert** (2010-11-15): Overall, my impression of college is that I didn't so much learn things as I learned how to learn. The only really practical skills I learned were how to write well and how to paint well (art major). Much more important than that, IMO, is that I learned HOW I learn things and how to educate myself, which is something I'll never stop doing. I'm not saying you can only do this in college--that would be stupid. But college is what did it for me. Comparing myself before and after college, I was pretty unformed and shapeless beforehand. I came out much closer to being an actual human being with thoughts and ideas.... **Chris Randall** (2010-11-15): So what you're all saying seems to be two things (which are maybe related): 1 - I didn't learn fuck all in college other than the fact that college is kind of weak. 2 - I learned how to learn. -CR **AGL** (2010-11-15): I studied mechanical engineering in college, and then studied programming on my own, and now my breadwinner is Automation software for mech. engineers. So basically, what I learned in college was what kind of wankers I would be making stuff for, and how to effectively ignore them while making their jobs 10x easier. Also, Automation software is incredible simple when compared to music software, so it's kind of a cakewalk. **bmedich** (2010-11-15): The best projects for me are when I don't know exactly how I'm going to get it done. **Jinsai** (2010-11-15): Happiness comes from novelty and challenge. I went to college. It was a good experience, and the ability to explore so many different ideas, technologies, and people in an encouraging environment populated with KNOWLEDGEABLE people was invaluable. **boobs** (2010-11-15): oh yeah, congrats on finishing the project CR. college: i had a handful of really great teachers (also a handful of wankers for teachers) who had an influence on my life beyond the subject matter of the classes they taught, met some cool people, had some fun and took my sweet ass time with it all. i think i went full time for 2 semesters. change of environment, getting the hell away from family and friends and your hometown cannot be under rated. i have friends who had the same general experience in the military except for risking their lives, seeing their friends die and returning home mentally traumatized... and of course not having the piece of paper that says "BA in blah blah blah" to put on job applications. **studio nebula** (2010-11-15): @CR: 1 - sort of. I did arrive at the conclusion that college is kind of weak, but I did learn a few things that I put to use over the years, including while building AD plug-ins. In retrospect, though, the university I attended was a bad match for me in many respects, and had I gone to a different one I might have learned more. That doesn't mean, though, that I want to give it a second try. 2 - yes, although I had a good deal of it down by the time I finished various Honors and AP classes in high school. I know someone whose 12-year-old daughter writes research papers--for nobody other than herself--when she encounters a topic that interests her. How much one learns in college may depend heavily on how much you've learned before you get there. --Adam **inteliko** (2010-11-15): I flunked outta college for chasing too much tail. I learned growing up in a drug infested building, Crack will make a producer with Gold records trade them for crack... I learned in Drug infested night clubs Drugs will get you gigs too...arrested.. chased into subway tunnels...cleavage will get you gigs also if your a female...drugs will get you females with cleavage... will make you walk down the street on a sunday morning with everyone going to church but you are stumbling to the atm with crack whores..not a good look.. Don't do Crack! **ZombieStomper** (2010-11-15): I'm with boobs on the college part. I think college is just an exercise is seeing if you can follow through with what you start, and it does not really make you any smarter unless you are building robots or water filtration plants. Today, I am literally 5 weeks to-the-day away from completing a master's degree. What I have learned in my life and work experience is that education can fill you with a lot of knowledge, yet you can still be a fucking moron. I think the tell-tale sign of intelligence is common sense and the ability to think critically, neither of which can be taught. For example, I communicate with individuals on a daily basis who possess doctoral degrees, and they cannot follow the simplest of directions that you could easily get a six-year-old to understand (I wish I was kidding). I think I tend to be more of a "damn the torpedos" type. I took on a project at work last week that others claimed they had tried every way they could think of to complete and no one could make it work. I just said I would find a way even though I had no idea if it was even possible. Well, 90 minutes later I found out it was possible, and my boss sprung for my lunch. **likewise** (2010-11-16): Post college reality is what gave me the "damn the torpedoes" approach. You spend x years working within certain fields and then most likely afterward you end up doing something partially or entirely unrelated to what you did the last x years. From my experience I'm always exploring what's unknown to me, or perhaps that is just where I find comfort(self satisfaction), thus making it my ideal destination. "What do I know about diamonds? I'm a boxing promoter." **spalky** (2010-11-18): I was a Music Performance major in college and I definitely learned how to play my instrument and learned all of the technical what-not of music. I then spent the next four years trying to "un-learn" enough to be able to play a rock tune with a decent feel. I think my college education allows me to be able to approach complex musical ideas and to absorb them quickly, but to actually learn I have to just listen and follow my ears.