[electrical]

[ QUOTE ]
1. What is the best way to get into the recording industry?(If you were just starting out would you go to school, or just try to find an internship)

[/ QUOTE ]
It's super cheap to buy recording equipment and start experimenting. It's super expensive to go to a recording trade school. I always recommend getting started as an amateur to see if you enjoy the process before you get into any more serious enterprise. Every town has bands that need demos recorded, so there are plenty of opportunities to experiment with no pressure and no expectations.

"Getting into the industry" is just about impossible. There are no jobs. I mean none, like zero none. Since the advent of cheap recording software, many traditional studio clients (ad agencies, film and tv productions, jingle writers and commercial music publishers) have been able to do most of their own recording in-house. Having lost much of their client base, the big institutional studios have cut their staff to the bare minimum to keep costs low, and most engineers have gone freelance. Studios that used to have dozens of in-house engineers now have only a couple.

Newer, smaller studios that cater to rock bands are usually owner-operated, sometimes by a partnership of a very few people, all of whom have some vested interest in the studio. If you are going to be a recording engineer for a living, you are either going to be freelance, or you are going to build a studio and work there.

There are audio-related jobs, in PA design and installation, touring and live sound, church, auditorium and architectural acoustics, acoustical testing and certification, broadcast engineering, etc, but there basically are no open-call staff positions for recording engineers any more.

If you are considering going into a recording program, I would strongly recommend going to a normal accredited university with a concentration in engineering, acoustics or music. Some schools offer a Tonmeister-equivalent recording program (UMass Lowell and University of Iowa used to, I don't know who does now). The for-profit trade schools (Full Sail, Recording Arts, SAE, etc) are operated as businesses where their clients are the students and the product they sell is a diploma. A degree from an accredited university carries more weight in the real world and can even get you involved in interesting graduate-level work.
[ QUOTE ]
3. How is your hearing?

[/ QUOTE ]
Good enough, apparently.