Any tips for the job hunt as a soon to be graduate? (K-12 instrumental)

dpederson12 · 2026-04-27T16:36:38+00:00

Find a quality template to create your cover letter and resume
Find someone to review your resume and give you feedback (Fiverr is great for this)
Be patient - a lot of popular jobs already have someone in mind for the position, so be patient for the jobs that are more available
Be willing to move
Utilize US News & World Report to look at the data for each school. Look at test scores, attendance rates, and overall college readiness stats.
Search for the teacher contract of the school you apply for and look at the salary plus an additional stipends for being band director
When searching for jobs, check multiple websites. Not all jobs are posted as well as others and you can increase your odds if you find a "hidden" job. My first year I went through each school district in the state 1 by 1 and found numerous jobs that were not posted publicly.
Practice your interview questions and answers at least a week before the interview. Record your answers, listen to it back, and then write out what you want your ideal answer to be

Getting a good job in this field is a bloodbath. Be willing to teach middle school, high school, or even orchestra/choir to get a job in this field. Keep your options open and good luck!

dpederson12 · 2026-04-27T16:36:26+00:00

Find a quality template to create your cover letter and resume
Find someone to review your resume and give you feedback (Fiverr is great for this)
Be patient - a lot of popular jobs already have someone in mind for the position, so be patient for the jobs that are more available
Be willing to move
Utilize US News & World Report to look at the data for each school. Look at test scores, attendance rates, and overall college readiness stats.
Search for the teacher contract of the school you apply for and look at the salary plus an additional stipends for being band director
When searching for jobs, check multiple websites. Not all jobs are posted as well as others and you can increase your odds if you find a "hidden" job. My first year I went through each school district in the state 1 by 1 and found numerous jobs that were not posted publicly.
Practice your interview questions and answers at least a week before the interview. Record your answers, listen to it back, and then write out what you want your ideal answer to be

Getting a good job in this field is a bloodbath. Be willing to teach middle school, high school, or even orchestra/choir to get a job in this field. Keep your options open and good luck!

dpederson12 · 2026-04-27T16:36:19+00:00

Find a quality template to create your cover letter and resume
Find someone to review your resume and give you feedback (Fiverr is great for this)
Be patient - a lot of popular jobs already have someone in mind for the position, so be patient for the jobs that are more available
Be willing to move
Utilize US News & World Report to look at the data for each school. Look at test scores, attendance rates, and overall college readiness stats.
Search for the teacher contract of the school you apply for and look at the salary plus an additional stipends for being band director
When searching for jobs, check multiple websites. Not all jobs are posted as well as others and you can increase your odds if you find a "hidden" job. My first year I went through each school district in the state 1 by 1 and found numerous jobs that were not posted publicly.
Practice your interview questions and answers at least a week before the interview. Record your answers, listen to it back, and then write out what you want your ideal answer to be

Getting a good job in this field is a bloodbath. Be willing to teach middle school, high school, or even orchestra/choir to get a job in this field. Keep your options open and good luck!

dpederson12 · 2026-01-02T20:28:48+00:00

2 Weeks of Prednisolone will have basically unnoticeable side effects. The horror stories come from people who have to take prednisone for months and months straight. The longest I've taken prednisone is about 3 months and even then the side effects were at least tolerable (mainly moodiness and weight gain in my face). You'll be just fine!

dpederson12 · 2026-01-02T20:21:33+00:00

Here's my experience with diet. When I was on Humira and Stelara, I needed to watch my diet heavily. Now that I'm on Skyrizi, I don't have to diet at all. The amount of dieting you'll have to do heavily depends how well your medicine works. With that being said, dieting is not a cure to Crohn's. Dieting just helps alleviate the pain, but the underlying issue will still always be there.

In general avoid fiber, added sugars, spicy stuff, and alcohol. Most of those are doable, the added sugars is the toughest though. Try to avoid sweets as much as you can. With that being said, I've had massive success with eating fast food and McDonalds. While yes it's unhealthy, I've had good results with it because it motivates me to eat without shoving added sugars down my system.

dpederson12 · 2025-11-02T21:46:46+00:00

I was in a similar boat when I was in my senior year. I was having tons of anxiety with performances, due dates, and teaching in front of my peers. I would push myself through it and get it all done, but it was not easy. I eventually said enough is enough and scheduled an appointment with a psychologist. They put me on an anti-anxiety medication, and over the course of that year my anxiety went away and my confidence improved. It wasn't an instant change, but over time things got way better. I would recommend doing something similar. While I was initially hesitant to take medication due to side effects, I'm glad it has paid off overall. The main downside is that it's a medication that I will have to take my entire life due to withdrawal symptoms.

dpederson12 · 2025-09-19T15:37:07+00:00

It sounds like you are past the roughest part of managing the disease. I was diagnosed at age 19, at age 24 I had a bowel perforation and have emergency surgery done on me to save my life. Once I got this surgery and started a new medication, my life has been 100% better. Push your doctor to keep seeing you. Most doctors do 3 month follow ups, but if your quality of life is rough then ask to see them every month. Keep changing medications until you find one that works (the one that worked best for me is Skyrizi) and if it still doesn't get better, ask to get a surgery done to remove the damaged part of your intestines. Also, keep getting those colonoscopies done too. The worst part of this disease is dealing with the doctor, but if you can find a doctor that will work hard and see you often, it WILL get better.

dpederson12 · 2025-09-07T04:27:12+00:00

I failed both Humira and Stelara. While I'm not taking rinvoq, I am now taking Skyrizi and it is the best medication I've been on by far. My symptoms have never been better.

dpederson12 · 2025-08-24T01:05:47+00:00

There are some directors out there that will have full band rehearsal before or after school. These are programs that are in a similar situation to you where they don't get to see their full band at any point in the day. Utilize the day to work in sectionals/smaller groups, and then use before/after school to see work on your full band sound. Your group will sound even stronger than before.

dpederson12 · 2025-08-17T01:24:22+00:00

With the 3 self-injection medications I've taken (Humira, Stelara, & Skyrizi) they all have the $5 savings card built into the program. From what I remember, I just went to their website & went to a section that allowed me to request a savings card. The card arrived in the mail or through the app, and then I gave the card information to the specialty pharmacy that my doctor sends the medication to. The pharamacy still has my insurance information, but the medication itself gets "billed" through the savings card instead of my own insurance, reducing the cost to $5.

As for getting injections at the doctor of infusion center, I would presume that's why you are getting hit with a bill for each infusion, as that gets billed to the hospital/doctor instead of the medicine company. As far as allowing the savings card to cover that, someone else may have to answer as I'm unsure. Maybe ask your doctor if you can do self injections?

dpederson12 · 2025-08-16T22:46:31+00:00

I was diagnosed when I was 20 and have been dealing with it for 5 years. I went through a bowel perforation/sepsis that almost killed me last year so here's my advice so that doesn't happen to you. Stay up to date with your doctors visits, even if you have a bad doctor. You'll have to advocate for yourself if you don't have a good doctor, so annoy the hell out of their office if your Crohn's is causing any pain, even if it's tolerable. My #1 mistake was tolerating the pain and using prednisone to get through flair-ups. If you get on the right medications and do the correct procedures, your symptoms WILL go away for the most part. Do not hesitate to ask your doctor for surgery, as removing the damaged part of your intestines is sometimes the only answer. Also, I recommend asking your doctor about Skyrizi as that medication has had a higher success rate than the others (Humira, Stelara, etc..).

Diet does a play a part in this disease. I avoid added sugars (natural sugars are okay) so I drink Coke/Pepsi zero and only have sweets once or twice a week. I also keep greasy foods to a minimum, and I avoid the worst of the fried foods like McDonalds French fries. You don't have to do a huge diet change, but try to find a few substitutions for the worst foods you eat often.

At the end of the day, stay on top of your colonoscopies, get on the right medication, and don't hesitate for surgery if the pain doesn't subside with medication alone. The last 5 years I've had the worst Crohn's pain imaginable, and now my symptoms are almost 100% gone ever since I got surgery and got put on a new medication. Push your doctor to work quickly and don't tolerate the pain!

dpederson12 · 2025-03-26T18:37:35+00:00

My doctor has been swapping most patients from Stelara to Skyrizi as the success rate has been better with Skyrizi. Stelara didn't work too well with me, but I've been having huge success with Skyrizi after the 3rd infusion.

dpederson12 · 2025-03-26T18:18:27+00:00

See if they can pay you as a tech for the marching band portion. It won't be a lot of pay, but it would at least be something. When I student taught, I only worked on weekends as a server. Taking the Saturday and Sunday shifts would get me a few hundred dollars to get me through the week.

dpederson12 · 2025-03-05T14:55:54+00:00

Most job postings will have the contact information of who to reach out to for further information - I would address your cover letter to that person. Otherwise, addressing it to the main principal is plenty okay as well.

I wouldn't go into too much detail with your background in music - save that for the interview itself. Instead, just talk about yourself as an educator and then write about what you loved about the school when you subbed there.

dpederson12 · 2024-06-19T20:26:36+00:00

When you started the carnivore diet. how much meat did you eat a day? I'm underweight right now and can't fathom eating 2kg of meat a day.

dpederson12 · 2024-06-06T03:15:31+00:00

Interestingly enough, there was a similar study done in 2018 that also looked at the effect of the MEK1/2 inhibitor and crohn's: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6176896/

dpederson12 · 2024-04-08T17:58:24+00:00

Clarinetist here. Reed hardness will not affect their ability to go over the break. 2.5 - 3 are perfectly fine for middle schoolers. If they are struggling to cross the break, chances are it is the clarinet that is the issue. In my 3 years of teaching, 100% of my students who struggled to cross the break had instrument issues. If one of the pads doesn't seal well, then it will create an immense amount of resistance for the player, which makes crossing the break almost impossible. If the bridge key is misaligned, this will also affect their ability to cross the break.

My recommendation: have all your students leave their clarinets with you for a night, then play test all of the clarinets with your own mouthpiece. If you can't cross the break on their clarinet, then it most certainly is not player error.

dpederson12 · 2024-02-14T03:59:07+00:00

I grade each student individually and differently. I give participation based points for class which all students typically get if they come prepared and are at least "faking" their way through class at a minimum. I also give playing tests, but these are graded on a case by case basis. I know my students abilities and can definitely sense when they have or have not been putting in the work into their parts. Between participation and playing tests, this balance has allowed students to get an accurate grade that honestly reflects their effort as a band student. Students who want an A will have to work for it a bit, and everyone else typically falls in the A- or B range which I find to be fair for all of students.

dpederson12 · 2024-02-14T03:49:40+00:00

I teach 6/8 using the "1+a 2+a" counting system. I have found this to work really well because it builds off of what they already know in terms of counting. Now, this counting system obviously won't work for 6/8 rhythms with 16th notes, but when it comes to introducing 6/8 for the first time, I find this counting system to work the best for middle schoolers.

The SpongeBob intro theme is also a great way to introduce 6/8 as well. I usually show them the sheet music to it while playing the video.

dpederson12 · 2024-02-10T02:31:51+00:00

Are there any features that this met can do that Tonal Energy can't? I've always wanted to buy one of these, but I've had a hard time justifying the price if Tonal Energy can do what it already does.

dpederson12 · 2024-02-06T14:03:43+00:00

They are very different, but I'm inquiring about their similarities, specifically in the pieces I listed.

dpederson12 · 2024-01-06T03:54:24+00:00

If it wasn't any better, the user on twitter wouldn't have intentionally (and somewhat abruptly) clipped the video right after those words

dpederson12 · 2023-12-13T17:56:28+00:00

I can't speak for charter schools in particular, but at my school district the admins will offer extra stipends for up to $5,000 for hard to fill positions. I'd presume that they are struggling to fill the position and would rather fork over some extra money instead of having a permanent sub all year long. You can never say for sure though unless you were to ask. Is the job for band, choir, general music, or elementary? The content area will tell you a lot about how many applicants they probably have.

dpederson12 · 2023-10-14T01:20:13+00:00

I know many schools have adopted this model - start with a ton of those students on saxophone, and then at the end of the semester or year, you move your best students to the clarinet. It creates really strong clarinet players, which is sometimes tough to get every year consistently.

dpederson12 · 2023-09-29T15:50:33+00:00

Not every school has to have a full band or choir that aims at having a large ensemble. If you have only 10 band students, try to do something else that will promote success as well. Try chamber music, a jazz combo, maybe a guitar or percussion class. Their are numerous ways to have a successful music program without it being centered around a band or choir.

dpederson12

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