Q&A: In Celebration of Their First Anniversary, Gen Admission Talks Fostering a Global Community, the Platform’s Growth & Future Plans
THE MUSIC INDUSTRY IS OFTEN CHARACTERIZED AS AN ELUSIVE SPACE — that is constantly challenged for its inaccessibility, especially for young industry hopefuls and members of marginalized communities. While there has been a seismic shift with the ubiquity of the playlist and the algorithmic lottery that is TikTok, organizations like Gen Admission wish to address the areas of this industry that remain exclusive.
Formerly known as Coda Collectiv, Gen Admission is a platform that provides aspiring music industry professionals with the necessary tools and information to help propel their careers. The platform was founded in Feb. 2021 to create a digital space that opens viewers to the myriad possibilities within the music industry.
Shifting from a record label employee to being a part of an artist’s team, Gen Admission dives into numerous career paths that are found in the music industry. Additionally, the platform acts as a content aggregator with resources for various aspects of music, a glossary consisting of all the terms you never knew you needed, and a vibrant yet informative Instagram page to keep you scrolling.
In celebration of their first anniversary on Feb. 20 and to learn a bit more about the organization’s conception, Luna got to have a chat with Gen Admission’s founder, Lou Rochdi, and team member Nicole Pratt.
LUNA: Shifting from Coda Collectiv to Gen Admission is a smart move. I think it's a really smart name in general, but what was the inspiration behind changing the name?
ROCHDI: When we started, we decided to name ourselves Coda Collectiv. It was super hard to find the first name — we struggled. We wanted something music-related, and the coda is the sign-in sheet music, and we also really liked it. Creating opportunities, driving artists: that was kind of the first idea, and we liked the name. But this entire project started as a “project” with a couple of people — a couple of friends, a couple of students. Then a couple of months ago — back in September — we decided … “Wow, this is super cool.” And a lot of people are actually interested and think that this is a good thing that we're doing; “Maybe we should be more official, maybe we should have a structure.” And so we started looking into becoming a nonprofit organization. And one of the first things that our lawyer and advisor told us is that there's this huge other organization called CODA, which is Children of Deaf Adults, so it wasn't really smart to keep Coda. I mean, we're still so young — we're almost celebrating our one-year anniversary soon — so we were like, “You know what, let's just change it.”
It's not like we were super tied to this name yet, so it's smarter for us to change it. It was hard to find a second name because we all loved Coda so much. And we had meetings for brainstorming and all of that, but then one of our interns at the time who's now a full member of the team, Ian, was like, “Yeah, well, why not use, ‘General Admission,’ like the tickets that you buy when you go to a concert in GA?” And we were like, “Why not?” And then somebody else — and I don't remember who in the team; I wish I could, I'm going to go back and find that name — said: “Gen Admission because Gen is shorter, and longer names are a little harder, but also it gives us a Gen Z vibe.” And then progressively we gave ourselves a couple of weeks and months and then we said, “Okay, it fits.” We really like it. And now we don't want to go back. So, yeah, I'm kind of glad that we changed.
LUNA: And how did the whole organization start altogether?
ROCHDI: So we started about a year ago. It started with me and my other co-founder at the time who's not in the project anymore. But we just met through a random networking event at the beginning of February last year, and we really connected [based] on the fact that we were international students and really struggling because of our position as international students. And progressively there were multiple events last year on Zoom for the music industry. There was #NEXTGEN_U, organized by the Music Business Association. And through that we met a ton of other students so we created this group chat and we were like, “Let's just all motivate each other. Like, if we have any questions, if we don't understand anything, just let's chat on there.” And then from this group chat, we decided to meet over Zoom, because we were all bored. It was lockdown at this point. This kind of felt like going back in-person.
From a European perspective — because I was in Paris at the time — we were just stuck; nothing to do, and we were bored. We realized there’s a clear lack of resources out there. We started to Google “What is the structure of a label?” — nothing would come up and some were just really, really outdated resources. We would struggle to find information, so we thought, why not do it ourselves? Like, we're here, we're all struggling; other students are struggling. We all see that there's a lack of important resources, so let's just try to do the research ourselves. And so that's how it kind of started [Gen Admission]. It became really serious really fast, and I think it's mainly because of the team that we have and that everybody was talented in a certain area. We have amazing graphic designers, we have people who know how to operate websites, people who are willing to do the research, and people who would contact others on LinkedIn and send emails and try their absolute best to be able to build those resources. And I still to this day believe that the main strength of Gen Admission is the people that we have in this team — my favorite people on Earth. Without them, this project would have never grown in size and extended to what it is now.
LUNA: When I was looking on the website, I saw that there are a lot of people on your team from all over the world. Is it important for Gen Admission to have people from different backgrounds?
ROCHDI: It started involuntarily being international, but it happened, and I think now, looking back, it makes sense that we have that many international students, because, sadly, outside of the United States and the UK, there are very few opportunities in the music industry in the rest of the world. Where I'm from — I’m from France, originally — summer internships are not a thing; internships in general are not a thing. So it's really hard, and the industry is much smaller. It's hard to get into. What we realized, though, is that for those international students living in Germany, Greece, France, (we had Kazakhstan at one point) it's harder for them to find those opportunities and to learn. And so we would give them this chance, because we do not care if you're international or not, like, honestly — come with us. We love that. We love the cultural differences.
LUNA: Are there any future plans for the organization that aren't within the purview of aggregating content for the website?
ROCHDI: This has been a whole discussion since we started 2022 — we definitely want to go above the website. I think it was important to start with a website, because usually when you have something you want to learn, you Google it, and … you click on the first word that pops up and you read about it. It’s interesting to have these resources on the Google search engine and have it out there for people who are actively looking for them, but there's also a lot of people who don't know what to type for in Google and don't even know where to start. They're just interested in music, but just don't know where to look.
This new generation of people is mostly on social media, so we wanted to develop a social media presence … We have a really cool Instagram at the moment. But we hope to start going into TikTok and going into Twitter and going into more social media spheres.Other than that, we want to extend the educational parts to more than just reading. We could make videos and we want to collaborate with other organizations. I think 2022 has a lot to offer for us, and we have a lot to look forward to and to work towards. I don't think it's just a website anymore.
LUNA: For any of the Luna readers who are going to look at this and be like, “Okay, I'm in love with Gen Admission and I want to join,” what are you looking for in your team?
ROCHDI: That's such an interesting question. Honestly, I'd say people that are willing to learn and people that are motivated to make a change. We don't have a guideline [for] the type of profile, but we're looking for volunteers. I think all of our team is learning together, and what people may not see from the outside is that we're also a very tight community. The cool part — I think my favorite part about Gen Admission — is that we've created this little family that supports each other and supports each and every person in their endeavors outside of the organization too. So I do think that joining Gen Admission is more than just doing your five hours a week or whatever. It's also taking part in this community, being present in the meetings, making friends, and talking — we've made really cool friends through that. It's just wanting to be part of this community; wanting to learn. We are not looking for people who are experts, because we are not experts ourselves. It would be unfair to be like, “Nah, you're unqualified.” I mean, we were all unqualified to begin with. But we're looking for people who are truly willing to learn and willing to participate.
PRATT: I definitely agree with everything you were just pointing out. It is interesting being part of such a collaborative team. Because out of other jobs that I've held — past or current — being part of a group of people that is from all over the place is so unique. When I talk to other people about Gen Admission and tell them a little bit about it, they think it's just so cool that we're all over the world. I love having our weekly meetings and to just hear what people are doing in their day-to-day life or what they're currently working on. And you can learn so much from people based in Germany or Canada or the States or France, or wherever it may be. And you don't get that anywhere else. At least I haven't. I think it's awesome.
LUNA: You said earlier that the majority of the Gen Admission team was initially composed of international students. How is it handling that plus school, and what is the plan post-university?
ROCHDI: I think we’re still figuring that out. Interestingly, we all started as students, but a few members of the team are now working already. I'm thinking especially [of] the graphic design team — some people graduated last year. So that changed some things. This is not a full-time job, even if I wish it was, it's not a job. I think our dream would be to grow with the organization and to reach a point where we won't have to ask for professional help from actual professionals, because we would be the professionals.
LUNA: What are you looking forward to most for Gen Admission this year?
ROCHDI: Oh my god. I mean, I think the main goal of the organization this year is to be known by more people. Because right now I think we're still a very, very small community. And it's kind of a shame, because I feel like a lot of students could benefit from our resources. So I think the main goal this year is … for more people to know about us, for more students to know about us, and to be more present on college campuses; to be known by the people who need it most, working with colleges, and working with other organizations that are currently focused on music education.
I think last year was [us] kind of trying to figure ourselves out, like, “What are we? Who are we and where do we want to go?” Last year was kind of the discovery stage, whereas this year is more of like, “Okay, now we know what we want.” We know we want more students to know about this now — what are the ways we're going to get to that point? Collaborations or working with more people? I think that would be the goal for this year.
LUNA: If you were to sum up the mission statement of Gen Admission in three words, what would they be?
ROCHDI: Oh my god, three words? Well, the first one would be “education” for sure. That's our whole mission: to educate and provide resources. For the longest time, we always said “international,” because I think it's important to point that out. In the long-term, one of our absolute goals would be to give more opportunities to non-American students, because this is still something that we struggled a lot with. There are so many opportunities in the United States and the United Kingdom, but it's a little harder in other territories. So if in the future we can give more opportunities to international voices, that would be amazing. I think “education” and “international” — do you have anything in mind, Nicole?
PRATT: Maybe it's more on lines of “collaboration,” because everything we do is based in networking — not just within our own team, but with other people too. So, an emphasis on that?
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