jazzersimon

OK so this isn't as extreme a decision as you made but it's along the same vein so I'm going to put this here.

I'm in my final year of school in England and recently had the ordeal of applying to universities. I applied for both straight up academic music courses and universities and also applied for vocational music courses at conservatoires (I appreciate this is different to the US, here our conservatoires are nothing to do with our universities whatsoever).

I was very fortunate and ended up with two very good places offering me a spot on the course: A spot at Oxford University and a spot at Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Both of these courses offer entirely different things, with the academic focus of Oxford and hugely practical focus (I play classical flute) I would get at Guildhall.

I spent a huge amount of time and effort working away at this decision and eventually, against all advice from teachers etc., chose to confirm my place at Guildhall. This essentially was because I simply couldn't turn my back on a life of being completely surrounded by people who love making music as much as me - I didn't feel the same way about being surrounded by academics, regardless of their status.

So I suppose my question to you, although having already read of your regrets I somewhat fear the answer, is being surrounded by music and doing (presumably) what you love doing worth missing out on the academic grounding you could have had? Is there ever times where you think of some other career and lifestyle you could have had and wish you had made that choice? And do you ever get bored of music?

Here I am asking you about the worries I have about my choice of course I suppose, but thanks in advance!

Hold up but surely that's the wrong way around? If you're a doctor and don't want to be then you're potentially putting peoples lives on the line. If you're a musician who doesn't want to all you're risking is your own job.