Collegiate Times

Zach Gambill, a class of 2011 graduate, and Nik Bando, a senior economics major, have worked together to start the music site FMI.

With today's tuition costs, landing a great job post-graduation has become the largest goal of students in college. Afterall, people aren't going to make that kind of monetary investement without a reasonable rate of return.

Unfortunately, not everyone’s journey through college and their chosen major turns into that vested career with benefits and an upfront bonus. Even worse for some, is the possibility of not finding any type of employment after school.

This is exactly what happened to Zach Gambill, a class of 2011 graduate with a psychology degree, who found himself unemployed after graduation. Not allowing this to get the best of him, he turned the negative situation into a positive one, by pursuing his true passion of music.

“I was always really into finding stuff before the curve, finding new stuff that hadn’t really got popular yet and sharing it with people I know — being the guy that DJ’s parties," Gambill said. "That was kind of how it spiraled into the website.” 

Gambill turned the hobby of sharing music with friends into a fulltime career by founding the music blog "Fighting Musical Ignorance."

Gambill originally started the site in December 2010 simply as a way to share music and playlists with friends. He gradually became taking the site seriously as his graduation date approached.

“I was addicted to music, finding music, writing about it and sharing with people," Gambill said. "It kind of hit me afterward that this could be a legitimate opportunity for a full-time job.”

Unfortunately for Gambill, his degree did not apply to his current work at all. He lacked the necessary skills to compete in the online world and decided he had to learn.

“Over the summer I kind of taught myself Photoshop, how to code a little bit, some of the tools necessary to make a website, basically, how to host it — all that stuff,” Gambill said.

In addition to teaching himself, Gambill took some classes at a community college to further his knowledge of coding and web design.

At that point, Gambill had a professional looking music blog with good functionality and design, but hardly any users. He enlisted the help of his good friend Nik Bando to help market Fighting Musical Ignorance.

“It hit a point where Zach kind of had trouble doing everything on his own and needed some help and assistance with reaching out to people,” Bando said.

Converting Internet users to followers of the site is no easy task, though, according to Bando.

“There’s tons of music blogs out there," the senior economics major said. "People are passionate about music and people already have their sites that they go to.” 

The pair have focused on using social media to help promote the site, as it represents an untapped resourced, which could be used to connect on a personal level with users.

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A version of this article appeared in the Apr 25 issue of the Collegiate Times.