It's really coming, the end. SO strange! What do you do when you don't have school to tell you what's next? Sorry if this post is wordy, I've just had a lot on my mind lately, and I'm curious as to what you all will think about it. Honestly, I need some advice. Maybe I should have taken that lame class in college, "Career and Life Planning," because right now I have no clue what I'm going to do!
I've loved my internship, and have definitely become more comfortable with going into people's homes. I'm thinking I may start my own business very similar to Music To Grow On. I'll be living in the Bay Area/Silicon Valley (Lance got a great job there, so we'll be there for at least 5 years). It's definitely a wealthy area... so how much do I charge per clinical hour? I know music therapists there that charge around 80 and hour. I would not feel comfortable with that considering how new I'll be. But I like the sound of 80 and hour, it has a nice ring to it, ya know?
And if I do start my own business... I don't know, what do I have to do? Paperwork? A name? I am not creative like that. Not a clue! I would not ever hire other people, too much management. Just me. Unless one of you wants to join me and we can be partners in crime!
Another thing is... I don't really want to work full time. Maybe it's the 45-50 hour work weeks I'm pulling to finish early, but it makes for a long day, and I do want to have kids some day. So maybe just like 15 clients? I don't know. Are any of you having these same thoughts? What are you planning on doing after your internship? Any ideas/advice for me? Yes, I have 4 weeks left, and I'm trying to figure out my life. After internship. Heaven help me, no one is there to tell me what to do next!
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I hear you Brianne- REAL life setting in. I feel a similar way- still got 2 months to go but after all that work it's like- now what? I think I agree that fulltime music therapy work is EXHAUSTING!! I'm defintely digging the whole part time idea. I almost think we should have had to take some buisness courses just to know how to navigate the system. I know Hilliard wrote a book about how he started a program for hospice music therapy (funding,forms, presenting, etc) maybe it might have some applicable ideas. The resource book from AMTA has the average rates for regions/populations which might give you a better idea- maybe you could go to the AMTA conference over there and ask some people from the area how they got started.
ReplyDeleteI guess I am still holding off the whole real life deal by doing grad school(hopefully). To be honest,I'll probably just get an office job after internship and just do more research on how to start a program, maybe present to some hospice/hospitals in the area and see what happens. It's so tempting to volunteer a little hoping people will realize how amazing mt is- but I am going to force myself to not work for free. I guess we'll all just have to learned to be spontanious not only with sessions, but our careers as well.
One of the social workers here said something that was good advice for me. She said you need to "own your power" meaning to own the fact that you are an "expert" in your field and do have the power to add to situations. Though it seems daunting, I guess we need to own the fact that soon we will be music therapists and have a valuable service to provide...still working on that "power" idea though.
I hear ya with the "owning your power!" I've observed occupational therapy on two seperate occasions with two seperate clients of mine, and different OT's. SOOOOO not impressed!!! If it wasn't for the brief sensory stimulation stuff they do for clients I would lobby against the whole profession. Through out both sessions I was just thinking... okay... we do this, but the clients actually ENJOY doing it! Anyway, I felt a lot better about what we do after that. We really do amazing stuff! And our program is HARD!!! They should just make the undergrad a master's and bachelor's program. But yeah, definitely part time. Luckily I'll have Lance to help me with some of the business stuff. You know me, I'm just lazy and I'm not sure I want to put out all of the work to actually start a business... I'm pretty sure I'll want to have a couple of clients while I am staying at home with kids, just to keep me sane, but I'm not positive, ya know? Anyway, thanks though!
ReplyDeleteBrianne,
ReplyDeleteThe main reason I selected the internship I did was because of the emphasis it placed on teaching how to start one's own business and marketing. I now feel like I have a handle on how to begin my own position if the time ever came up. We were required to do a 9 unit project that helped us go through the steps of creating the business, from everything to selecting a name for your business to selecting health benefits for yourself. If you would like me to send you some of the information I have to get you started on learning how to market yourself, let me know.
And for those of you students who are beginning to look into internships, I HIGHLY recommend MusicWorx of California.
I would love any tidbits you can give me! Also, I was wondering if anyone knew anything about Petra Kern's online "courses" she offers for new music therapists wanting to start their own business.
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