Dr. Krystal Prime Banfield doesn’t just want to teach popular music, she wants to inspire others to teach it as well.

Peter Bell has written countless jingles for brands like Nike, RC Cola, Converse, and the American Red Cross, so he knows a thing or two about writing music for advertising.

The details of these graduates’ stories vary, as do the reasons they chose to leave Berklee, but what unites them all is an overwhelming sense of inspiration.

After 10 years working in the music industry, Katie Day enrolled in Peter Bell’s course at Berklee Online where she learned how to write and produce music for advertising. One year later, she started her own music production house out of Los Angeles.

Eric Church’s Grammy-nominated song “Some of It” is a great example of the personal and universal “slice of life” that makes this type of writing tick.

When songwriting student Myra Molloy landed the alternate lead role of Kim in the national Broadway tour of “Miss Saigon” she contemplated dropping out of Berklee College of Music—before learning that she could complete her degree through Berklee Online.

First there was TIDAL, and now there’s Amazon Music HD, another mainstream high-fidelity streaming service. Berklee Online instructors Jonathan Wyner, Erin Barra, Prince Charles Alexander, and Sean Slade share their thoughts on music streaming quality and whether it matters to music industry professionals like themselves, the average listener, and the audiophile.

Traditional four-year music programs can be restrictive to active musicians. Three students share their stories about how transferring to Berklee Online has allowed them to pursue their music careers close to home and on the road.

Rose Banuelos, a songwriting major at Berklee Online, established the nonprofit, Music for Purpose, which provides music education to vulnerable children in Honduras.