I’m super involved in the classical music community at my undergrad. For context, I had international awards in HS, and though I stopped competing and taking private lessons for my instrument, I still play (biology major, no double major or minor in music). I have leadership in two music orgs (one hobby club, another music volunteering org at the university hospital). I also do orchestra and a different ensemble, and the professor was impressed enough that he ended up hiring me within the music department as a paid collaborative musician. We have an actual music school with performance majors, and this is highly unusual (unprecedented?) for a non-music major to be given that opportunity.
The thing is, this stuff is a major time commitment (~15h/wk min), and my parents are getting concerned that I could be spending my time on other things because “music won’t help you on your application”. Is this actually true and should I be looking to spend my time elsewhere? I was also thinking of getting my non-science LOR from the professor who hired me. I enjoy music, and I have volunteering/research going on with a 4.0 GPA, but I definitely could get more hours on more application-targeted things if I dropped some music activities.
The thing is, this stuff is a major time commitment (~15h/wk min), and my parents are getting concerned that I could be spending my time on other things because “music won’t help you on your application”. Is this actually true and should I be looking to spend my time elsewhere? I was also thinking of getting my non-science LOR from the professor who hired me. I enjoy music, and I have volunteering/research going on with a 4.0 GPA, but I definitely could get more hours on more application-targeted things if I dropped some music activities.