Abstract:
The wilderness is often conceived as a place where persons can become confused or
get into a wild condition (Nash 1982) and the ‘wilderness years’ as a time of
uncertainty where the vastness of life, choices and roles bewilder actions that could be
taken. Such spatial and temporal conditions could aptly be applied to graduates
making the transition from safe contexts of educational preparation to becoming
professionals at work. Our paper examines the nature of learning discovered by recent
graduates participating in a symphony orchestra-initiated development program
designed to nurture them through the transition to becoming professional orchestral
musicians. We argue that this empirical example helps to support a conception of
learning as an embodied and constructed experience with others in context. Here,
learning to become ‘a whole musician’ is facilitated by guided contextualisation, a
process that differs from conventional discussions of skill-based novice learning and
mentorship. The competency that is being developed is one of learning how to
become, forming a sense of identity as broader musical citizens as well as becoming
members of more instrumental communities. Such attributes of graduateness are less
about applying disciplinary or generic skills and more about committing to a form of
lifelong learning that is relationally-based, a critical part of graduates developing a
fitness for professional practice and the persistence to emerge from the wilderness to
becoming professional.
