A short personal reflection by Lauren Bateman describing her experience seeking programs to become a professional musician, finding them disappointing, and resolving to become a more supportive, non-prescriptive mentor who helps people pursue what they want. The speaker frames this as a lesson learned from a negative experience in music-industry training programs.
I started Googling, and I found some programs that were like, how to become a professional musician and make money. And I started going down that path, getting help. So I'm like, I don't know anything about this space, so I should probably look to people who do know stuff about this space and went down that road and found it wasn't quite what I was expecting. Ended being such a bad experience that I was like, how do I become the kind of mentor that is supportive of people and trying not to force people into a corner? I want to help people do what they want, not. Not what I want them to do for me.
