15 Years Later: Reflections on Leaving Full Time Teaching and Joining the Corporate World
January 3, 2023 marks an important moment in my career. I have now been in the corporate world for as long as I was a full-time teacher. I officially began my life in the corporate world on January 3, 2008. Over the past 15 years I have learned a lot, grown as a business leader, watched my hair turn grey, and I’ve gained a very clear insight into the pros and cons of full-time teaching, and being in the corporate world full-time. I get asked what it’s like to be on this side of the industry all the time. I thought today would be a good time to reflect, and share my insights. I hope that if you are in a similar position (considering leaving full-time teaching for the corporate world) that you find this useful.
I spent the first 15 years of my professional career as a full-time music educator in the New Jersey Public Schools. I started in Irvington, NJ as an elementary band director in two schools. While I loved the students I taught, it wasn’t the right fit for me. In 1994 I began teaching at the Wandell School in Saddle River, NJ as a PreK-8 General, Vocal, Instrumental & Handbells teacher. It was a challenging gig, but I loved the kids and loved building a music program there. I left Wandell in 1997 to become an instrumental/general music teacher in Franklin Lakes, NJ where I spent the remainder of my career (11 years). While I was teaching I was pursuing my Masters & Doctoral degrees from Teachers College Columbia University. My area of specialization was music technology. It was something that I knew very well and the students LOVED when I integrated it into my teaching. I knew that I wanted to teach at the university level and spent most of my early teaching career chasing that dream. I presented hundreds of sessions at workshops and conferences around the country. I wrote well over 100 articles for various state and national journals. I started a blog in 2004 and blogged every day until I left teaching in December of 2007. I ran music technology conferences, taught TI:ME courses every summer, and joined the Board of Directors of TI:ME. In short, I spent nearly every minute that I wasn’t actually teaching trying to advance my career - wherever that might lead me.
While a Doctoral student, I had the great fortune of being offered my first university-level adjunct teaching gig at Teachers College, teaching the music technology courses. I jumped at the chance and have been teaching there since 1999. Soon after that I also started teaching at Montclair State University (my alma mater) as well. I really enjoyed teaching graduate students and decided that I wanted to do that full time. When I interviewed for full time university level teaching gigs I had a very stark and somewhat depressing realization - those gigs paid really badly. I mean really badly. I couldn’t afford to leave teaching, move my family, and pay my bills on the salaries that I was being offered. The best paying job offer I received (at a wonderful school) had a salary that was less than half of what I was making as a middle school band director. After several offers I decided to give up the dream of teaching in higher education and instead become the very best teacher I could be.
As luck would have it, in September of 2007, my dear friend and colleague, Lee Whitmore, called me up and asked me if I would ever consider leaving teaching and join the corporate world by taking over at the helm of SoundTree - the educational division of Korg USA. I had already been working for them part-time as a clinician and author and was a long-time very happy customer. I interviewed for the job and got an offer. After hours of discussions with friends and family I decided to leave my tenured teaching job and join the corporate world. I walked out of the Franklin Avenue Middle School on December 23, 2007 and into a new chapter of my life.
SoundTree was one of my favorite companies in the music technology space when I left teaching, and it was truly an honor to be chosen to lead the company. SoundTree focused on keyboard and guitar labs for schools, as well as other software and hardware sales. I came to the first company meeting with TONS of ideas. There were 15 people on the staff when I joined and they all welcomed me with open arms. Over the next four years I got an “on-the-job MBA.” Before joining SoundTree I had no idea what a departmental expense budget looked like, I didn’t know what Gross Profit Margin meant, I had no idea how to draft a sales forecast - nothing. During the interview process I was asked if I thought it was odd that a middle school band director was going to run a mutli-million dollar a year company. My response was that if I could keep 100 middle school students with musical instruments on task and goal oriented - I could run a company. I absolutely LOVED working at SoundTree, but after the recession of 2008-09 and the drastic impact it had on school spending, the birth of the iPad, and the start of the online software revolution with Joe Berkovitz’s amazing creation of Noteflight, I could see that the future of music technology and education was quite different than the solution I was trying to sell to schools.
In January of 2012 I met Bob Wise, who was introduced to me by my good friend Joe Berkovitz. Bob is a legend in the music publishing industry and built his company, Music Sales (now Wise Music), to be the biggest publisher in Europe. It was probably the single most important moment of my career. I immediately hit it off with Bob and 3 months later he gave me the opportunity of a lifetime - to start my own company based on my own ideas. Ten years later MusicFirst is thriving and millions of teachers and students around the world use the platform I designed and helped to create. It is something that I never take for granted and I am so thankful to Bob and Wise Music for allowing me to build this amazing company.
Now that I’ve been in the corporate world for as long as I taught full time, I thought you might find it interesting to read what I consider the pros and cons of leaving teaching for the corporate world. Here goes…
Pros
If you have a supportive executive team and surround yourself with smart, talented, creative people, a company can be like a family and makes coming to work something that you actually look forward to. It’s never problem-free, but nothing worth doing ever is.
You can pee whenever you want. As silly as this sounds, it was truly amazing to not have a bell delineate my working day.
You can curse at work and not get in trouble for it. Just ask my staff.
If you forget your lunch, you don’t have to eat cafeteria food. I happen to work in midtown Manhattan, so finding a good place for lunch is VERY easy. I do NOT miss rectangular-shaped pizza!
No standing out on bus duty in the freezing cold, or waiting for a parent who is late picking up their darling child! (but the commuting sucks)
It has the potential to pay better than teaching - but not always. You have to remember that a teachers salary is often based on a 180-185 day work calendar. Summers were unpaid where I worked and that was tough. If I was paid my 10 month salary for 12 months, it would have been equal to my first corporate salary.
Travel is pretty cool - not gonna lie. While it does have an impact on time spent with your family and friends, I find it a privilege to be able to travel around the world and meet amazing people - all on the company dime.
In my sector, you have tremendous potential to change the profession for the better. I wouldn’t do what I do if I didn’t believe that. I spend every day trying to make music education better for teachers and their students. Without sounding too egotistical, I think we’ve done that at MusicFirst - at least for our customers.
Successful veteran music teachers make GREAT sales people and leaders in the corporate world. We have had to advocate for our programs for so long we don’t realize that advocacy is one step away from selling - and being a performance ensemble director is one step away from running a company.
I have an AMAZING team at MusicFirst and I truly love working with each and every one of my staff. I am a lucky boss.
Cons
10 vacation days. That was the toughest pill to swallow. I have now worked long enough at my job to have 20 vacation days - but still - nowhere near the glory days of summer vacation I had as a teacher. They call it “the grind” for a reason.
Tenure is really nice (if you have it). You don’t know how nice it is until you are in a position to lose your job - which is exactly how it is in the corporate world.
My work day never ends when the bell rings at 2:50pm. In fact as a business leader, it never ends period. I am always working if I have the opportunity to do so. I often force myself to go for a walk in the woods without reception, or drive up to my place in Vermont to unwind.
My health care plan and pension was amazing when I was a teacher. The corporate world? Not so much. As a teacher, nothing was taken out of my check for health care - not one penny - and I had the top of the line plan. That is simply not the case at all in the corporate world - at least in my experience. For the family plan that I have now, over $1,000/month is taken from my pay. My NJ State Pension was also a zero deduction thing - not so with a 401K. These benefits are VERY important and absolutely should be taken into consideration. Sometimes you don’t know what you had until it’s gone.
Competition. As a music teacher, the only competition I was aware of was a marching band competition or a graded music festival. The music business is very different. Even though the music education industry is small, and the music education technology industry is even smaller, it is a very competitive environment. Competitors can be pretty underhanded and ruthless. They smile to your face and then do everything they can to replicate or even try to harm your business when you’re not looking. Literally. I never do that. I spend my time thinking of what my customers need and want, and then I work to make that happen. I go to sleep every night knowing that I am focusing only on making my business more meaningful for my customers rather than trying to hurt another business. Take me out for a beer or two and I’ll tell you some war stories.
Stress. I thought I had a stressful job as a middle school band director. Ha! At least when I was teaching I had control over most situations that might be stressful. Have an irritating student? Send them to detention! Band isn’t where it needs to be for the upcoming concert? Rehearse more! The corporate world is effected by many things, including the larger economy. Almost every business in the music education sector relies on sales. When spending is cut, it effects all of us too. Nearly all of my work related stress comes from sales - when they are great we all high five each other. When they aren’t so great, we tend to point fingers and blame. I have probably aged faster over the last 15 years than I did in the first 37.
Firing people is horrible. While it needs to be done sometimes for the good of the business, I hate this part of the job. I love the people I work with and it sucks to have to let good people go.
You always have a boss - even when you are the boss. Unlike as a music teacher where the quality of your teaching and possibly the quality of your performance ensembles determines your success, the corporate world often revolves around money. You’re only as good as your last months sales figures is a common expression and sentiment in the corporate world, and it isn’t very far from the truth unfortunately.
Sometimes being the boss is a lonely gig. When I taught, the other teachers in the school were some of my dearest friends. I still miss them very much today. We would often commiserate with my colleagues in the teachers lounge. The topic would often revolve around an administrator or a problematic parent, and we would all stand in solidarity against any unfairness. As a boss, my staff is probably (hopefully not) doing the same thing occasionally and I have to give them that space. But I would love to join in sometimes too :)
So do I miss teaching? Sometimes. I do miss working with kids - they give off an unmatched energy when they are on task and engaged with learning music (though they can be a P.I.T.A. when they’re not!). I miss witnessing those “light bulb moments” when the students “get it.” I miss joking around with them and telling stories. I miss making music on a daily basis - although that didn’t happen “every” day. I miss my teaching colleagues immensely. I try to keep in touch with them now and then, but it’s not the same. I miss my summer vacations and the amazing teacher schedule - no doubt. But deep down, I know that I have made the right move from a personal and professional standpoint, and that’s all that really matters.
I will end this post with some advice. Advice that I wish someone had given me. If you are considering leaving the teaching world to join the corporate world, you should ask yourself a very important question: WHY? If it’s because you truly don’t want to teach anymore and don’t enjoy the company of young people, then do it. You owe that to your students and to yourself. If it’s because you can’t stand your principal, find a new school before you leave teaching. Bosses in the corporate world are often just the same. If it’s because you can’t stand your colleagues, find a new school before you leave teaching. Colleagues in the corporate world can drive you crazy too. If it’s ego driven (and that is totally OK) then do it, but know that your ego might take a few lumps on the journey. If it’s salary driven, ask people in the industry lots of questions. You might be very surprised how your salary compares. If it is a case of the grass is always greener on the other side/curiosity - you might be disappointed. Talk with your family and friends, parents, mentors, trusted advisors before taking the leap. In my case I am very glad that I did. I run a company that I built from the ground up and I love what we do. I’ve met thousands of people and travelled all around the world. I work with amazing people and with technology that still makes me amazed at what it does.
I hope that this is helpful. I welcome your comments and questions!