After reviewing your research (both primary and secondary), please use the following questions to develop an analysis of your findings at this stage:
- How does your primary research compare to the secondary research you conducted? Did your primary research yield similar or different results from the preexisting data?
- Does your primary research fill in any gaps from the secondary research?
After looking online for research, I did not find a ton of information regarding the characteristics and character trait attributions that the Ayala Band and Colorguard provides their alumni in the real world after going through the program.
Although this is heavily talked about in the program and a huge reason as to why students join the program in the first place, I would have thought that this would have been one of the prominent things the program advertises to new members. Talking, and to alumni from the program, I found that a majority of them did not even go into music or pursue any sort of hobby/interest/work with music after graduating. Perhaps this is due to burnout or even time commitment, but I found the thing people carry with them after graduating is the ability to practice good time management skills, work hard, set goals for yourself, be a team player, be cooperative, and learn what it is like to fail and succeed in beneficial ways that will bring you closer to your goals and aspirations. Many of the alumni I have some to have gone on to be leaders on their college campuses, communities, and places of employment. They believe all these skills have been attributed to their involvement in the band and extracurricular activities on campus.
Ayala Band sets extremely high expectations for its students. They require all their students to have a 2.5 GPA to participate in the program, however, the average grade point average for the students in the program this past year (200+ members combined) was a 3.8 according to the band director. This is an extremely high GPA for an after school program that provides little to no time for extra tutoring outside of campus.
Each alumni I interviewed was also believed themselves as being a confident person in both an intrapersonal and interpersonal sense. I believe this is something that heavily contributes to how we measure “success” in a professional world.
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Some main motifs I would like to focus on in my project now include:
- What leadership skills have you learned from the BAC that has played out in your current world successfully (i.e. work, school, social settings, community, clubs, organizations, etc.)?
- What does the program mean to you? What significance and value do you think it possesses to you and others?
- Is the program stagnant or changing? Do you think the lessons learned, character traits earned, and skillsets will change as time grows on or remain the same?
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NOTE: During my research, I found out that the band had been involved in a scandal soliciting money and this has heavily affected my research in a negative way. A lot of my data is currently being skewed because of current relations the band has with its booster organization, members, and current students. As a way to combat this, I believe it is important for me to perhaps focus on the years prior to my involvement in the band up until my class of 2018 graduated. I think this will keep more neutral results. I also believe it is important to omit individuals that have graduated but still have siblings in the band because this may also possibly change their perception of what the band does/did for so many students in the past.
The Byers Post 