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I studied a BFA in Sound Design. It was an incredible mix. Along with the base arts courses, it stepped across music, film, animation and comp sci. It taught me

I studied a BFA in Sound Design. It was an incredible mix. Along with the base arts courses, it stepped across music, film, animation and comp sci. It taught me the basics of signal processing, encouraged 'play' and seemed to balance creative expression with the engineering skills to enable that to happen. After getting through all the courses that interested me I dropped out to travel and then fell into a few interesting jobs that kept me otherwise distracted from going back. I would 100% do it all again. The only thing that I'm super upset about is that I did't fall into the live coding community while I was there (this was literally happening at the same uni https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yY1FSsUV-8c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yY1FSsUV-8c). One mindset that it solidified in me was when building things come up with the concept first, then figure out how to make that happen. That may be easy, or it may not. But at least what you're making will be worthwhile. I work in the audiovisual industry today running an R&D lab for a systems integrator. We create presentation spaces, high-end corporate facilities and VC suites (which are still apparently a thing), a little bit of broadcast work, some stadium projects and lots of large format displays. When I'm tied into projects I'm usually end up rolling with some systems engineering, DSP programming, a bit of embedded dev, UI work and network engineering. About to begin something new and rather exciting too.

vvll 10y ago
This sounds super interesting to me! I watched the video and it led me to install Sonic Pi and start messing around. Very cool stuff, will be interesting to see where electronic music goes in the future. As someone who is still an EE student but is super into music production and film in my spare time, can I ask how you ended up where you are and to what degree your creative background helps out?
- kimburgess 10y ago
  Oh sure, sorry for the late reply — been a busy few days. I spent a large chunk of my life (both pre and post study) working in the live events world. Super fun, but not exactly what I'd call a sustainable lifestyle (financially and health wise). I'd also been coding from from a relatively young age. When I discovered I could combine the two, build things that lasted more than a couple of hours / for a single tour and not be killing myself in the process, I switched focus to the installed AV space. I managed to get lucky with a few positions where I was able to work with some great people who helped me continue learn and have fun. As others have commented here, I find there's a huge mental overlap between most creative practices and building good software and product. Being able to burst through stages of intense idea creation then follow up and with the ruthless self and external critique required to discard 95% of what you thought were earth changing concepts is a painful, but extremely useful skill to acquire.

vvll 10y ago

This sounds super interesting to me! I watched the video and it led me to install Sonic Pi and start messing around. Very cool stuff, will be interesting to see where electronic music goes in the future. As someone who is still an EE student but is super into music production and film in my spare time, can I ask how you ended up where you are and to what degree your creative background helps out?

kimburgess 10y ago
Oh sure, sorry for the late reply — been a busy few days. I spent a large chunk of my life (both pre and post study) working in the live events world. Super fun, but not exactly what I'd call a sustainable lifestyle (financially and health wise). I'd also been coding from from a relatively young age. When I discovered I could combine the two, build things that lasted more than a couple of hours / for a single tour and not be killing myself in the process, I switched focus to the installed AV space. I managed to get lucky with a few positions where I was able to work with some great people who helped me continue learn and have fun. As others have commented here, I find there's a huge mental overlap between most creative practices and building good software and product. Being able to burst through stages of intense idea creation then follow up and with the ruthless self and external critique required to discard 95% of what you thought were earth changing concepts is a painful, but extremely useful skill to acquire.