college major within home theater, please help. (1 Viewer)

[allan espinoza]

Hi, I have grown a vast addiction to electronics, especially in home theater, and I am trying to decide on a major to persue in the field of home theater. I was majoring in psychology and have numerous courses completed and I was then struck with the big question, "where is this taking me?" and although I am fascinated with it I have a greater addiction to home theater.I would like to work in an area where I would either be installing equipment such as custom installation or perhaps callibrating such as an isf calibrator. Now, I am not too familiar as to where I need to start or classes I need to learn much as possible. I figured I would ask here for any advice or opinions from those whom may work within a similar field of home theater before discussing it with my counselor. I am graduating from a community college at the end of this semester and at 20yrs old I would really like to jump on this and transfer to state so I don't waste any time. I really have this site to thank for the inspiration and addiction as I have learned so much from just reading and learning from trial and error, so I must really thank all of you for the inspiration.

sorry if this post is against the rules of this thread, but I did not know where else to post this.

 

[SethH]

I would guess that you'd be better off doing technical certifications for the things you're talking about. If you're interested in an actual degree, I would recommend electrical engineering which would allow you to possibly design equipment.

 

[Grant B]

allan
not to burst your bubble, but even with the right degrees it tends to be difficultbut the 2 you mention are possible.
i graduated in EE and almost a minor in music (no such beast but if there was i would have had enough credits). for a senior project built a surround sound decoder (only problem was nothing to decode at the time) and 20 years later have not come close to working in the field. $%%^ happens


for a isf calibrator they have classes and for custom installation it would be good to have a few basic electronic classes and start at the bottom....maybe a BB or CC installer and work up
Smaller outfits tend to be commission only since they tend to be small and sales and instllaer might go together.

I turned down a job since I hate sales and I could not live off the commissions. Starting out like you might be easier without big bills than when I tried
Try the cedia website and check out what they say and I think you can post your resume.

 

[Mark Sherman]

What type of experiance do you have working with Home Theater electronics and installing them? There is alot more to home theater then one may think Trust me I Know I do it for a living. As far as Being ISF certified It requires at least some knowledge of how video works how color works plus $2000.00 for the course and at least a minimum investment of 10K for the calibration Equipment I also know about this since I am ISF Certified.


Not to mention I have been doing this for almost 10 years and I am still learning more and more as the years go on.


My advice is start small. Start at someplace that offers at least basic training IE Tweeter. That is where I started out years and years ago and it worked out well.

 

[Jon_Gregory]

Electrical Engineering Technology. That is what I am going for right now. It studies a lot of the same principals of Electrical Engineering, but focuses more on the hands on technical nature of things rather than all of the mathematical, theoretical concepts. There still is quite a bit of math and science involved but not as much as the full EE degree. I have 8 more classes to take and we are just now getting into all of the more interesting topics and hands on learning.

This degree is a Bachelors of Science and is great if you don't want to get into the theoretical aspects of Electrical Engineering. In many cases a person with this degree, usually after a few years of experience is given the title of engineer at their company.

 

[Justin Lane]

If you want to get into installation, I would try to hook up with one of the A/V vendors in your area which do work in schools and offices. This will give you quite a good deal of hands on experience with various equipment and installation locations.

As for an actual degree, look for a technology related degree (Instumentation, electronic tech, etc.) of some sort offered at your local technical school or community college.

J

 

[Scott_lb]

I would argue that it really depends on the specific area of home theater you are interested in going in to. For example, if you are interested in designing equipment, I would think that some sort of engineering degree would be beneficial. However, if you prefer to enter sales, it's really an open field. At the store I used to work at the sales people had varied educations, ranging from psychology to engineering. Being successful at selling home theater is really more about sales aptitude than technical knowledge (although you obviously need to understand the product in order to sell it). What specific area of home theater interests you the most?

 

[allan espinoza]

hey thanks for all the great suggestions. I could be interested in sales, but I am not sure how well that pays. An isf calibrator would be great, but I have always been interested in doing custom installations. I know there is more to it than meets the eye and I am fully aware of work involved, but thats life, you have to work to be where you want to be. As far as experience, I do not have much aside from doing tweaks to picture, geometry and sound. I have done personal jobs from my parents friends where they have asked to come to their house and set up all speakers by placement, sound calibration and picture settings as well as installing in wall speakers. I do car stereo installations and have worked at best buy installing systems for about a year. I do know more about home theater than what the average joe would, but would like to know more by getting down to its roots.

 

[SethH]

If you get into corporate sales (e.g. selling speakers to distributors) then you can make serious money selling. I'm not very familiar with the margins in the HT industry, but in most industries, corporate salespeople (those not dealing directly with end-users) can make well over $100,000 in any given year. In many industries this number can reach $250,000-300,000 for very good salespeople.

 

[allan espinoza]

hmmm...well how do you get into something like that?