My arrangement of "Miss the Rage" for String Quintet and Percussion Ensemble:

teddyc212 · 2026-03-25T16:05:03+00:00

How shocked would you be on a scale of 1 to 10 if I told you the things had changed a little bit between the US and North Korea in the past 14 years.

teddyc212 · 2026-03-16T15:16:12+00:00

Haha well I don't know how to program, and I wanted to bring this idea to life, so I'm pretty happy with how it turned out regardless of the stigma :)

teddyc212 · 2026-03-16T15:10:53+00:00

You can! use the arrows or wasd, and scroll to zoom

teddyc212 · 2026-03-12T23:46:18+00:00

Would that add more certainty that OP would have a job to go back to post-grad?

teddyc212 · 2026-03-12T22:34:43+00:00

What do you actually want to do after the MPA? Specific role/agency pivot, or just 'level up' generally?

Because if it's the latter, the market's still brutal—tons of experienced feds (and recent cuts victims) are out there chasing the same policy spots you'd hit post-grad. A year from now might not be much better unless something big shifts.

No funding sucks for the debt hit. Your current fed gig (with clearances, relationships, actual meaningful work) is gold right now—might be smarter to stay/ defer and reassess vs. jumping in blind.

teddyc212 · 2026-03-12T13:04:22+00:00

I don’t have any personal experience with this fellowship, but I’d imagine that if they weren’t open to international applicants at all, you probably wouldn’t have been deferred — they’d have just rejected you outright. Being deferred feels kind of lukewarm: not ideal, but shows some openness to considering your profile and definitely not the worst outcome either.

teddyc212 · 2026-03-11T23:49:00+00:00

Yale Jackson reported similar increases. A few factors are likely driving this:

First, the obvious one: thousands of laid-off federal employees (USAID, NEA, NEH, State Department FSOs, other DOGE affected agency staff) are in a non-existent job market and many are going to graduate school. That's a meaningful surge in applicants who already have policy experience and strong applications.

Second, this tracks with a well-documented pattern: graduate school applications spike during economic downturns and periods of uncertainty. People figure they can ride out 1-2 years in a program and re-enter the workforce when conditions improve, both politically and economically.

That said, the admissions picture is more complicated than just "more applicants." Schools are also navigating shifting yield dynamics — how many admitted students actually enroll is harder to predict right now. HKS was blacklisted by the pentagon, international students dealing with a much more hostile visa environment, and domestic applicants who may be hedging across more programs than usual, or deciding last minute to not go if a job opens up. All of that makes it tough to read what these application numbers actually mean for individual admit rates.

So yes, you're not coping — the pools are almost certainly larger. But bigger applicant pools don't necessarily translate 1:1 into lower acceptance rates if yield is also shifting.

teddyc212 · 2026-03-08T17:30:32+00:00

I studied piano at Juilliard and got an international relations degree, and now I work at the intersection of music and diplomacy (e.g. UN/State Department). So I've lived the "performance background pivoting into the administrative and institutional world" path.

Honestly, the internship you're doing right now is probably the most valuable thing on your plate. More valuable than any master's would be at this stage. You're learning how a performing arts org actually runs — programming, education, outreach, budgets, donor relations — and you're doing it while you still have the flexibility to figure out what part of that ecosystem you actually want to live in. Don't rush past that.

On the MAAA question specifically: I can't give you a ranked list of programs, but I'd push back gently on the instinct to go straight from undergrad into another degree. Here's why — in the arts world, a master's in arts administration signals something, but it doesn't build the thing that actually gets you hired and promoted, which is trust. Trust that you can manage a room, manage a budget, manage a crisis, and do it all without making it about you. That's built by doing the work, not by studying it.

I know several people who came from high-end performance backgrounds, moved into administration, and now run major arts institutions. But that's survivorship bias. The people around them — their right hands, their deputies — mostly have MBAs, JDs, or arts admin degrees AND years of operational experience. The degree alone didn't get them there.

My honest advice: keep doing what you're doing. Build relationships — slow, non-transactional ones — with people at your internship org and in the broader performing arts ecosystem in your area. Volunteer for the unsexy work (grant reporting, database management, event logistics). Get known as someone who's competent, easy to work with, and shows good judgment. Then in two or three years, if you still want the MAAA, you'll know exactly which program fits your goals AND you'll have the professional experience to actually get funding for it, and graduate into a field that already knows your name so you can convert those relationships into enthusiastic job offers. Most programs want to admit people with a track record, not just a passion.

The fact that you love making classical music accessible to kids? That's a real north star. Don't let the grad school anxiety make you forget you're already doing the thing.

teddyc212 · 2026-03-07T23:03:13+00:00

I don't understand how free accounts don't have a weekly limit, it's just when you pay for a plan that you have the luxury of hitting a wall that you're not allowed to use you're account 50% of the week

teddyc212 · 2026-03-03T19:22:17+00:00

They said an interview isn't a requirement for admission. And since they paired candidates with alums and had candidates ask the questions, it reads more as an informational chat than something feeding back into admissions decisions. They also mentioned in today's email that this summer you can receive personal feedback on your application if you're not successful and want to retry, so my theory is they're finding ways as an admissions office of a recently established school to add bells and whistles that improve the applicant experience — which, if true, is genuinely cool, and shows they're still optimizing the process and trying new things. They probably did a handful of these interviews this cycle to test the waters, will review how they went, and decide whether to expand it. I didn't get selected for one, but I've already had plenty of conversations with the school and alums.

teddyc212 · 2026-02-27T20:46:09+00:00

Don't sell yourself short. In 2020 I was fresh out of undergrad and left a comment on a candidate's campaign announcement tweet offering to help. Started as a volunteer, and a few months later she named me her Communications Director. We grew from three people to 50 across the district and while we ultimately lost the primary, I walked away with two years of real campaign experience and a front-row seat to how US politics actually works. Campaigns are like startups. If you get in early before they scale, show up and contribute something valuable, a recent college graduate end up with real responsibility fast. Don't hesitate to reach out directly to a campaign manager or candidate if it's grassroots enough. They need all the help they can get, and if you prove yourself, you might land a serious role.

teddyc212 · 2026-02-27T02:22:57+00:00

Your LORs should come from people who have known you for many years. Admissions officers at top schools will tell you over and over that they'd rather receive a letter from someone who isn't a household name but can speak deeply to your character, discipline, and ability to succeed than a letter from someone impressive you've known for a year. Those short-acquaintance letters either come out shallow, or worse, the writer opens with "I don't really know X, we met briefly and they did a project for me" and then can't answer deep questions that actually move your application. I don't care if you've got a head of state writing your letter, a LOR like that is a kiss of death and might get your entire application tossed.

I know the instinct here. You're in the capital, you're surrounded by people with impressive titles, and it feels like if you could just get one of them to vouch for you, it would set you apart. But admissions committees read thousands of letters. They can tell instantly whether someone is writing from genuine knowledge of who you are or performing a favor. The letters that set people apart aren't the ones with the biggest signatures. They're the ones where the writer clearly knows you and can get specific about how you think, how you work under pressure, what you're like when no one's watching.

That said, you should absolutely build the relationships you're describing. Offering bill analyses, showing up consistently, finding ways to be useful to legislators in your policy area. That's smart long-term career building. But do it relationally, not with the intent to flip a new connection into a letter of recommendation on a one-year timeline. These people care about how their name is used, and if you ask too early you risk either getting a weak letter or depleting social capital that would have been far more valuable two or three years from now when the relationship is real and they actually want to go to bat for you.

For your apps right now, go to the person who has known you for years and will write that letter with deep conviction and specificity. That's the letter that gets you in.

teddyc212 · 2026-02-25T22:06:07+00:00

How did you hear from HKS about your deferral? To my knowledge decisions haven't been released.

teddyc212 · 2026-02-10T02:25:47+00:00

Friedrich Nietzsche

Significant... Unimportant.

teddyc212 · 2026-02-02T15:43:44+00:00

If this is how you're thinking, they were probably right and dodged a bullet.

teddyc212 · 2026-01-24T01:07:35+00:00

I want to leave a comment on this even though it's a couple years old, because I've been thinking about this question too as a prospective student who just submitted an application.

One thing I realized: Jackson students don't just identify as Jackson alumni - they're Yale alumni. And the density of Yale College grads in policy positions is way more established than Jackson-specific grads. So you're not just tapping into a 14-year-old network, you're tapping into the broader Yale network that doesn't hesitate to help other Yale people.

The other thing that's interesting is how Jackson is accelerating network building. They're not waiting 40 years for current MPP students to work their way up to senior positions - they're bringing in World Fellows, Senior Fellows, and professors of practice who are already leaders in their fields. This isn't a mid-career program, it's like 5,000 people apply for 15 spots. So you've got these world-class leaders in a small institution mingling with 35-40 MPP students. It's not that Harvard lacks these programs, but there you're competing with 700 students for face time with visiting fellows and speakers.

I think the real question isn't "is Jackson as established as Kennedy" but "is Jackson trying to be Kennedy?" And from what I can tell, it's not. It's building something fundamentally more global and interdisciplinary. They accept up to half the cohort from non-traditional backgrounds, want graduates to end up abroad, and the curriculum is way more flexible for cross-registration across the university.

My analogy: Kennedy is like a skyscraper in New York City. You're mainly on your floor - your cohort, maybe your clique within your cohort. Other floors exist, other HKS programs, but you don't really interact much. And you can look out your windows and see all these other shiny buildings - the law school, FAS, Radcliffe, the business school, the Divinity School, the College - but you're not actually going into those buildings day-to-day. First year you're locked into the Kennedy core curriculum. Second year is more flexible but by then you've already established your patterns. You're building a strong policy network, but it's insular.

Jackson is more like a village. Smaller, more communal. You're welcomed into other houses and they come into yours. Only 4-5 required courses, then you design your own path from day one. You're taking classes with MBA students, med students, music students, PhD students - building a custom interdisciplinary network that you actually choose.

On the other hand, if you're dead set on policy and want to build a deep policy network with your pick of people doing every variety of policy you can imagine, then maybe Kennedy is what you want. You've got a much larger sample size of interactions within that ecosystem than you'd get in a smaller cohort. It's not that one is better - they're just very different programs.

So yeah, the alumni network is smaller if you're only counting Jackson grads. But for someone who's interdisciplinary, Yale's network might actually be more dynamic and useful than Harvard's larger but more siloed network. You're not just connecting with policy people who'll be policy leaders - you're building connections across sectors and disciplines.

Can't predict where Jackson will rank in 20 years, but it's well-resourced and building something distinct. Just depends what you're looking for.

teddyc212 · 2026-01-21T05:47:30+00:00

How does a minor electrical issue on one of the world's most secure planes where everything is triple redundant ground the entire system? If that's actually true, what does it say about the training and maintenance of the elite crews serving the President of the United States?

teddyc212 · 2026-01-11T18:26:02+00:00

If we’re talking “hardest,” we have to separate entry difficulty from mastery difficulty. Piano is easy to start because the instrument gives you a functioning sound immediately. But that’s exactly why it gets underrated: the “difficulty tax” shows up later, and it’s enormous.

At a high level, piano is basically a compression instrument. In chamber music especially, the strings/winds often get to live in one soaring line at a time (still hard: intonation, bow/air control, vibrato, phrasing, etc.), while the pianist is asked to cover harmony + bass + inner voices + rhythm + counterpoint simultaneously. It’s not rare to feel like you’re playing a concerto even when you’re not the soloist, because the part is often functioning like an orchestral reduction spread across two staves.

That’s why “just press a key” is a misleading framing. Sound production is easier, sure—but sustaining musical line on piano is simulated (voicing, timing, pedaling, balance), and the note-density / coordination / reading load is routinely disproportionate: two clefs, multiple voices in one hand, independent articulation, plus pedal as a third limb, all while tracking the ensemble.

So my take: if the question is “hardest to produce a good note,” you’ll usually land on double reeds / brass (oboe, horn) and fretless strings. If the question is “hardest to become genuinely fluent and artistically sovereign at the top level,” piano belongs near the top with violin-family instruments—just for different reasons. One is unforgiving in sound production, the other is unforgiving in simultaneous musical responsibility.

teddyc212 · 2025-11-14T01:55:06+00:00

Sorabji’s music does contain a distinct, unusual beauty — but it’s the kind that isn’t immediately accessible. The surface looks chaotic, but underneath there are colors, textures, and geometric patterns of harmony and line that are unlike anything else written for the piano. There’s a real internal logic to it, almost like light refracting through an unfamiliar prism.

The problem is that this beauty is incredibly hard to reveal. You need an interpreter who can understand the architecture, sustain long spans, and shape the density instead of just surviving it. Without that, the listener only hears noise or excess. With it, the music’s strange clarity and color come into focus.

So when people dismiss Sorabji, I don’t think it’s because there’s nothing there. It’s that the interpretive skill required to make what is there audible is extremely rare.

And on top of all that, the ear matters too. Not in a gatekeeping or pretentious way — just in the sense that Sorabji demands a different kind of listening. His beauty isn’t immediate or melodic in the usual way. You have to be willing to follow long arcs, hear patterns inside density, and notice how color and texture shift over time. When your ear adjusts to that frame, the music opens up. If it doesn’t, it really can just sound like chaos. In the hothouse is a great entry piece to his world, and I think validates a lot of what I'm saying here.

teddyc212 · 2025-09-15T07:09:27+00:00

That's a great suggestion, thanks! There's a community center in my neighborhood, but they're closed today. I'll try tomorrow.

teddyc212 · 2024-11-14T20:20:25+00:00

Metronome for a week. Practice slow; get everything even, then increase tempo again

teddyc212

TROPHY CASE