career in magic or realistic degree?

[John B.]

So I am currently trying to decide if I should put my money into buying things for magic and mastering that and go on to be a table entertainer with a part time job also or if I should use all my money and for college and try to get a degree. I love magic, I love learning how something is done and creating my own story with it. I love to see people be amazed by what I do and how the trick that stunned the 8 year old also works with adults. I love feeling that i can lead someone to believe i was in their head when i do my mentalism trick. But at the same time everyone tells me that i should get a degree and go with that, even though my new major i want to go with is more up my alley I can't really see myself there and don't want to spend thousands to find out I know have to get a job in that degree so I can fund magic and thus be waiting 5 or 6 years before I get back to magic, I was wondering what your thoughts on this were, since there are magicians here and card lovers I want all opinions.

[Gunshy1]

higher education is never a bad thing. there is no reason you can't go to college get a degree that you want and do magic shows on the side for some money. In that case you would still be progressing in magic while getting an education.

[John B.]

higher education is never a bad thing. there is no reason you can't go to college get a degree that you want and do magic shows on the side for some money. In that case you would still be progressing in magic while getting an education.

the thing is both cost money, to really know magic and be able to do good shows and have enough material for shows i need to buy some tricks,books,dvd etc. and college also cost money, thank you for sharing your opinion.

[austin]

I think that you should go to collage, but practice magic on the side when you have free time.

[Curt]

I would agree with the previous posts. In my opinion, it is a much safer option to continue your education and will most likely benefit you more in the future than investing the majority of your saving in to magic will. Stick to magic as a hobby/part time job, it is amazing how much magic you can do with a deck of cards, some coins and a few sponge balls. One of my good friends who is a restaurant magician, really one uses a few tricks, even though he knows many. He can just alternate routines from one table to another, that way not every table sees the exact same stuff but it allows him to not have to hundreds of effects in one night. Hope this helps.

[John B.]

I would agree with the previous posts. In my opinion, it is a much safer option to continue your education and will most likely benefit you more in the future than investing the majority of your saving in to magic will. Stick to magic as a hobby/part time job, it is amazing how much magic you can do with a deck of cards, some coins and a few sponge balls. One of my good friends who is a restaurant magician, really one uses a few tricks, even though he knows many. He can just alternate routines from one table to another, that way not every table sees the exact same stuff but it allows him to not have to hundreds of effects in one night. Hope this helps.

ok i might see if i can work on that, i talked with other magicians and they had mentioned getting card college before I try to be a table entertainer and that is a hundred something for the dvd. guess i was kinda hoping someone would come and say magic is the way to go. I don't really see myself with a degree from college and doing a job like that but it seems that is what most people think is better so i will try to go that way.

[Curt]

Card College is a very good series, I know the books are at least. You could pick those up and see where that starts to take you. I mean, if it is only going to cost you a hundred and some odd dollars to get started as a table hopping magician, than go for it. I guarantee that $1xx is not going to make or break your plans on going to college. I am in business administration and that amount of money would barely cover the cost of one of my five text books that I am using for the first semester of the first year. So if you think that Card College will help you start off a part time gig as a magician then that might be a pretty good option. I was talking about if you were to invest a tuition fees amount of money into magic, that I would be against, but if its a hundred dollars or so it might be ok.

[John B.]

Card College is a very good series, I know the books are at least. You could pick those up and see where that starts to take you. I mean, if it is only going to cost you a hundred and some odd dollars to get started as a table hopping magician, than go for it. I guarantee that $1xx is not going to make or break your plans on going to college. I am in business administration and that amount of money would barely cover the cost of one of my five text books that I am using for the first semester of the first year. So if you think that Card College will help you start off a part time gig as a magician then that might be a pretty good option. I was talking about if you were to invest a tuition fees amount of money into magic, that I would be against, but if its a hundred dollars or so it might be ok.

well in the long run it would be, ii also do not know if i can juggle both. I guess I could start card college and work on starting actual college and see where it gets me.

[Kanped]

Magic doesn't have to cost money.  You can do plenty with just a regular deck of bikes.  If you want to do the whole table entertainer thing, start now- contact restaurants and see if you can get a gig, try it for a while.  If you really think you can make enough to be happy (and provide your own pension) then stick with it.  If not, go to college.  Personally, I kinda think going to college just for the experience and networking is worth it but the money these days is getting silly and I'm questioning whether it's worth it at all.  Most people never use their degrees.  If you really want to do magic and you think you're really, really good at it (and if you're using DVDs and books as a crutch, I would question this) go and do it for a while.  You could always go to college the next year, right?

[John B.]

Magic doesn't have to cost money.  You can do plenty with just a regular deck of bikes.  If you want to do the whole table entertainer thing, start now- contact restaurants and see if you can get a gig, try it for a while.  If you really think you can make enough to be happy (and provide your own pension) then stick with it.  If not, go to college.  Personally, I kinda think going to college just for the experience and networking is worth it but the money these days is getting silly and I'm questioning whether it's worth it at all.  Most people never use their degrees.  If you really want to do magic and you think you're really, really good at it (and if you're using DVDs and books as a crutch, I would question this) go and do it for a while.  You could always go to college the next year, right?

I don't know if I am using those as a crutch, its just that to learn new tricks if I could find better free tricks and tutorials I would use them. thank you all for your advice.

[phantom1412]

For me, magic is a hobby, an important one.
I don't mind paying for magic, it's the same as people are paying for their hobby.
(But I have limit of payment also, cause I'm still a student and I'm not asking from my parents anymore)
I used to have an idea of go performing in public, and open hat show.(Not sure if it's call like this in English)
But, I'm too lazy and don't have courage enough to do that.

[Kanped]

I don't know if I am using those as a crutch, its just that to learn new tricks if I could find better free tricks and tutorials I would use them. thank you all for your advice.

I meant you should maybe try to be more creative and come up with your own stuff if that's what you want to do for a living.

[John B.]

I meant you should maybe try to be more creative and come up with your own stuff if that's what you want to do for a living.

ok i see what you mean. I like to be creative and put sleights together to make tricks when i can but i like to go out and learn some more sleights first.

[JMMJ]

I am in college and I get to do at least 15 to 20 gigs per month through the magic club here on campus. They also buy most of my effects (most recently Biokinesis) so I can tell you that it is possible to do both magic and college at the same time

[John B.]

ok thank you very much.

[MrLukeCarroll]

I'm currently doing Children's Show Magic as a full time career whilst also studying Drama at University and I couldn't give up either of them.

You speak of not being able to afford them both at first but remember if your doing well as a magician your easily making much more profit then your outlaying for new tricks and DVD's etc. It cost me about $500 to set up my full scale Children's Show and in less than a month I'd paid it off (and once your names out your profits go up even more).

That is one good thing about restaurant gigs you can do miracles with a deck of cards that Children will just be bored with.

Don't let anyone get in the way of your dreams if you want to do it then do it, magic is an amazing career