{"id":1985474,"date":"2025-08-28T21:32:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-28T21:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=1985474"},"modified":"2025-08-28T21:32:00","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T21:32:00","slug":"students-reflect-on-the-last-first-day-of-music-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/students-reflect-on-the-last-first-day-of-music-school\/","title":{"rendered":"Students reflect on &#8216;the last first day&#8217; of music school"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>      <!-- Body --><\/p>\n<p>The first day of school is an exciting time for students, teachers and families alike, but some students will hold bittersweet feelings as they march back into the classroom next week. For them, it will be the last first day before contemplating the daunting question that they will be asked ad nauseum: what\u2019s next?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p lang=\"EN-US\">Senior music students at the post-secondary level are contemplating that question as they return to the classroom this week with a mixture of emotions ranging from excitement at the prospect of starting their professional music-making to sadness at the loss of a supportive community around them to nerves about what lies ahead. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=\/05tSrkRJUMU\">https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=\/05tSrkRJUMU<\/a><\/p>\n<p lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p lang=\"EN-US\">\u201cI feel like those nerves from first year never really go away,\u201d laughs <strong>Luz Thiele Meza<\/strong>, a graduating vocal performance major at the <strong>University of Manitoba\u2019s Desautels Faculty of Music<\/strong> who\u2019s balancing excitement about final projects with sadness at final choir performances.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p lang=\"EN-US\">For aspiring music educator <strong>Sarah Schellenberg<\/strong>, the last first day is a time to reflect on the first first day when she stepped foot inside the Desautels Faculty of Music. \u201cI was so scared,\u201d she recalls. \u201cI didn\u2019t know anyone, and I didn\u2019t completely understand what I was doing yet. But I think now I have a bit more experience in that field and I know a lot more people, so that\u2019s very helpful and has helped me a lot with my nerves going into my last first day.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"instagram-media\" data-instgrm-captioned=\"\" data-instgrm-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DLdJZ1_iaZs\/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading\" data-instgrm-version=\"14\" style=\" background:#FFF; border:0; border-radius:3px; box-shadow:0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width:540px; min-width:326px; padding:0; width:99.375%; width:-webkit-calc(100% - 2px); width:calc(100% - 2px);\"><p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p lang=\"EN-US\">Schellenberg\u2019s experience also informs a piece of advice that she wishes she could share with her past self that she now shares with first-time university music students. \u201cNot everything\u2019s going to come all at once including friends, the music, repertoire, the studies,\u201d she says, \u201cso be patient, give yourself a little bit of grace on your learning.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<div class=\"jeg_video_container jeg_video_content\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Goodnight Moon: Eric Whitacre - Luz Thiele Meza\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xxVbuoSUplU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p lang=\"EN-US\">Perspective gained over her years of study has shown Thiele Meza something about her learning that she hopes to take with her into advanced post-secondary studies. \u201cI think the best thing I\u2019ve learned in university is how much I can learn from my peers,\u201d she says. \u201cI think I went into it thinking very much like, \u2018I\u2019m learning from my professors.\u2019 And then, especially now in the performance stream, getting to hear the people around me who are so talented and love the art so much, that on days when maybe my voice isn\u2019t working or I just don\u2019t feel great but I still have to get into the practice room, just hearing somebody else and listening to their joy has been very impactful.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>      <!-- Audio --><\/p>\n<p>      <!-- Video --><\/p>\n<p>      <!-- Gallery --><\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source classic107.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The first day of school is an exciting time for students, teachers and families alike, but some students will hold bittersweet feelings as they march back into the classroom next week. For them, it will be the last first day before contemplating the daunting question that they will be asked ad nauseum: what\u2019s next?\u00a0 Senior [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1985475,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1985474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Students-reflect-on-the-last-first-day-of-music-school.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1985474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1985474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1985474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1985475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1985474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1985474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1985474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}