Studying Music Online

Hello everyone! I’m Leigh McLaren, Student Advisor at Berkleemusic. Just like my colleague Liam, I work on the Retention side of the team.

I’m here to assist current and returning online students, make sure that they are well prepared before they start, help them choose their future courses, and check in on them throughout their studies.

Our summer term began June 29th and we are at week five of the term already. How time flies!

For the last few weeks, we have been checking in on our students to make sure that they are receiving the finest and most enjoyable learning experience possible. Between weeks three and five, I’m calling and emailing everyone to make sure that everything is going well. It’s very important to get our students’ feedback so that we can advise them in the best way possible.

My personal background is in music business, so I am especially excited to hear how our students are doing in our business courses, and what their future plans are! I also love to hear new things about our other subject areas like production, songwriting, arranging, theory, guitar, and bass.

One of my favorite things about being a Student Advisor is hearing each student’s unique experience with our online courses and programs. I love hearing how their studies have impacted their lives and careers differently—especially since our students come from all over the world, and represent a huge range of ages, from 15 to 70!

If I haven’t talked to you already this term, I look forward to speaking with you soon. I hope your course is going wonderfully, and if you do have any questions at all, don’t forget to contact an Advisor.

Liam McCormack here. I am a Student Advisor at Berkleemusic. Welcome to Studying Music Online, our new advisor blog, where you’ll get the inside scoop on what’s happening at Berkleemusic, in and out of the online classroom.

I know that many of you have spoken to us via phone and email, but I wanted to give you a bit more insight into our Advising team and all of our responsibilities at Berkleemusic.

Within our Advising team, there are two sides: Recruitment and Retention.

The Recruitment Advisor’s main responsibilities are to educate potential students about the many details of the Berkleemusic online learning experience. For example, how our courses function, which course is best for the student’s goals, how financing works, our affiliation with Berklee College of Music, our certificate programs, and more.

The Recruitment Advisors keep in touch with the student as they make decisions about their enrollment plans, answering any questions along the way, up until the point where the student actually enrolls in a course or certificate program.

At that point, the student is assigned to a specific Retention Advisor.

The student’s Retention Advisor is now their permanent Advisor contact at Berkleemusic. The Retention Advisor’s responsibilities are to help the student with any questions about our academic policies, help them pick courses for the future, guide them through scheduling their certificate programs, check in on them throughout their studies to see how things are going, etc.

The Recruitment and Retention team all work in the same space in our office which allows our tight knit group to communicate with ease and assist our students throughout their Berkleemusic experience.

I hope this insight is informative and helpful to you and I encourage you to contact the Advisors with any questions you may have!