Looking ahead to what you may like to do "when you grow up," you probably want to pursue a career that is exciting, personally rewarding and even fun. That’s perfectly understandable. You’ve been having fun for most of your life, so it stands to reason that you wouldn’t want the fun to stop just because you are about to make the leap from childhood to adulthood. You don’t have to, either. Some people will try to talk you out of your dreams, and tell you that the world of work is anything but fun, and that if you expect to have fun on the job you are either kidding yourself or setting yourself up for menial jobs that don’t require much effort. They are wrong. Tune out the killjoys and set your sights on whatever it is you want to do most. You only go around once.

Some people have a gift for gizmology. That is, they are handy with the gizmos that technology creates in everincreasing abundance. Many people are scared of the new electronic toys that have been created in recent years, never really grasping the idea that they were created to make our lives easier and more productive. Others simply take such advances for granted, learn how to make the best of them and get on with their work. But then there are the people who get stars in their eyes when the newest doodad hits the market. They have to have it, and when they get it, they learn to play it just as surely as a musician learns to play an instrument. Lots of careers fall into this category: photography, popular music, radio and television, aviation, auto mechanics and any other field in which the tools of the trade are somehow at the essential heart of the work. Audio engineering certainly falls into this category. Advances in sound processing technology have been rampant in recent years. Analog recording was replaced by digital recording. In some applications, even recording on tape has given way to recording directly onto a hard drive or similar storage device. Audio engineers love to push buttons, and theirs is a field that offers zillions of buttons to push. In a way, audio engineering is about more than the tools that make it possible. Competence with electronic equipment is the first step toward making bigger things happen. The tools of the trade play an important role in the creation of live and recorded music, radio and television programs, movies and, increasingly, "new media" like CD-ROM’s and World Wide Web pages. Creating, recording and manipulating sound is a big, diverse business offering a vast array of opportunities to the dedicated careerist. Better yet, competent audio engineers can choose to specialize in one particular area of audio engineering, or work as generalists in any number of areas. The possibilities are just about infinite.

A good ear is the other half of the essential requirements for an aspiring audio engineer. If you pursue audio engineering as a career, you will be responsible for mixing sounds created by other people and turning them into accessible products for other people to listen to. Your product may be a live performance, a recording or a broadcast. In most cases, you will not create the sounds yourself, but it will be up to you to make sure that other people can use and enjoy them later on. You don’t need to be an accomplished musician to be an audio engineer, nor do you need to have a rich, radiotype voice or know anything about live performance. Some experience in any of these areas can be a definite asset, but an appreciation of them is more important. You should be able to tell the difference between good production and bad production as well as any musician or broadcaster, even if you lack the skills to create the music or the broadcast yourself.

Do you possess these attributes? Are you fascinated by gizmos, and, more importantly, audio gizmos? Do you have a real appreciation for music, broadcasting or live performance? Do you have at least a little experience in any of these areas? If so, you may be cut out for a career as an audio engineer. Pursuing your career will require both discipline and the willingness to try new things, but these should come easily to you. Audio engineers tend to be creative, inventive types. Are you?

As you read this report take careful note of the information it contains. In it, you will find sections dealing with how to go about getting your first experiences in the field, how to get your first job, what kind of education and training you will need and even how much money you can expect to earn as your career progresses. There are also sections on where to look for work and what the attractive and unattractive features of the career are. And while you are taking notes on this exciting and rewarding career, remember to maintain your enthusiasm for your career discovery even when you discover that some aspect of this particular career may not be exactly as you’d hoped. At this point in time, just reading this report and learning about a possible career is much more important than actually choosing one.