This is the second year that Berklee’s Commencement will be held virtually because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2021 graduates have been through their share of adversity to get where they are today, but they are stronger, more resilient, and ready to take on the music industry.

Incoming Berklee Online master’s student Jamelle Houston discusses his music career and what keeps him coming back to his hometown of Temple, Texas.

Bassist and Berklee Online student Floyd Foster talks about what Black Lives Matter means to him as a musician and father of three.

Gabrielle Davis is a drummer, a DJ, a new mother, and a graduate of Berklee Online. In 2014, she founded her music mentoring nonprofit, Dream League, to offer music education for students in her hometown of Flint, Michigan.

Berklee Online’s graduating class of 2020 share stories of resiliency and celebrating virtual Commencement from their own spaces during the coronavirus pandemic.

Shelbie Rassler, a senior composition student at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee and a Berklee Online student, orchestrated a video of 75 of her peers performing “What the World Needs Now.” She shares how she did it.

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.

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.

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.