Picking a major is arguably one of the hardest decisions of college life. What kind of careers can a communications major get you? Can you really see yourself working in accounting for the rest of your life? Let’s be honest, how much money are you going to make as an English major? Junior Megan Cassady chose her perfect major shortly after coming to Iowa.
“I came into college as a pre-nursing major because I really wanted to help people,” Cassady said, “but I always had natural tendencies toward music.”
Cassady, who is not a musical therapy major, grew up in a musical family. Her brother played trumpet in band throughout high school and all four years in marching band here at Iowa. Her mother played saxophone. And her father got his master’s of music education at Iowa and now plays trombone and teaches music for a living. Cassady herself sings and plays the guitar, the trombone and the bass guitar.
“Musical therapy means working on non-musical goals through music,” Cassady explained.
Anything from fiscal development to working with someone after a traumatic event, musical therapy can help. Techniques for musical therapy can include actually playing music, lyric analysis or types of group therapy. Much of it is working on social skills like eye contact.
“Music brings something that other therapies don’t, “Cassady said. “Everybody, in some aspect, connects with music.”
Cassady is most interested in using musical therapy to work in hospice care as a career. She’s fascinated by diseases like dementia and Alzheimer’s and how music interacts with those losses of memory.
“There’s been a lot of research that playing music triggers memories from the past,” said Cassady. “I would love to be able to experience that – to see the patients’ quality of life go up.”
Though Cassady is majoring in something she loves and is passionate about, it’s not easy. Being a musical therapy major is a lot of work. Cassady is in concert and jazz band at Iowa and did marching band for two years on top of regular trombone lessons and her usual class load.
One of Cassady’s other passions is meeting international students and exchanging ideas about life and culture and faith. If her dreams of working in hospice care don’t happen, she would like to move somewhere overseas and try to do something with music, however that may look.
“Whatever God has for me I’m all aboard,” Cassady said. “It’s just awesome to learn about something you super care about, and being able to help people with music is just perfect for me.”