Finding a topic to discuss these days seems to be getting easier, as my awareness towards almost most subjects, whether it is music, politics, economics or weather systems, has grown exponentially since the start of the course. I don't know what it is but I find myself gaining interested in the most unlikely things. Hypothetically, this is not a problem as I encourage myself to be curious towards different subjects, but it is complicating my career choices.

Three years ago I had only one ambition, to become a musician. A year later the ambition changed into becoming an audio engineer. Within a short time my ambition changed yet again, and I wanted to become a music producer. Now, my plans are most likely heading in different directions altogether. Business studies intrigue me, as well as politics and philosophy. Anything related to social science I guess. But why the change of heart?

During my studies at SAE I have unconsciously grown frustrated towards my lack of ability to focus on a single technical thing. I would absolutely love to be able to program a RTAS plugin, create outboard hardware or design a pair of loudspeakers, but my passion towards the technical bits of these sorts of projects is lacking. I can't seem to get myself to specialise in certain field of audio engineering. It seems totally pointless to me. Why go down that path and spend the rest of my life making studio monitors? However, if I don't specialise, I end up like thousand other audio engineers, who just want to work in a music studio, record talented musicians and earn roles as producers.

I have officially woken up. This will not happen. There are thousands of people more talented than me who are at the same stage of their lives and will never have the pleasure of working in a music studio, unless they start it themselves. And I have discovered that there is not enough passion in me to start my own studio. The amount of money, work and energy needed for such a business to run (let alone make any money) is in my opinion better spent on something innovative and exotic, far away from the traditional studio world, perhaps even far away from the music world.

Yet, I have spent more money the last two years on school loans than I have spent all my life before that (at least from my own pocket) to study the fine art of audio engineering. I feel sorry to say that the ambition to develop a career in this field is fading. I feel obliged to start a online mastering service once I have finished the course, but that will probably only last for a couple of months, or until I have a good enough reason to head back home to Iceland where I will probably end up studying business or economics.

If I can’t invest my time to learn something extremely technical and specialised within the audio industry, I don’t see myself working in it. And I feel sorry to say that I do not want to dedicate my life developing software, hardware or accessories for the audio world. It’s hard to be honest with myself, but this is how I view things.