Beats of Success: The Rise of a College Dropout to Music Video Director

By Ileana Torres

A college education is often seen as the gateway to success and a brighter future.  For many students, attending college represents having the opportunity to learn new skills needed to pursue their dreams and passions. College is seen as the start of something greater beyond the horizon. 

However, not all students who start college end up graduating. While students may leave college for many different reasons, they fear how to manage their careers since receiving a college degree is seen as a marker of success and social status. 

Nick Welch defied those odds and carved his own path to success. Surrounded by multicolored lights and cameras in between sets, Welch gets to do what he loves every day, which is to direct and shoot music videos for underground rappers.

"I really enjoy doing it," said Welch, “I get to work with a lot of artists that I liked to listen to in high school or even when I was in college. A lot of the favorite artists that I have, I get to work with. So that makes me really happy."

Growing up in the Silicon Valley area, Welch had always known that he'd be going to college. For him, the idea of not going to college hadn't even crossed his mind. It was the "standard" for him. 

 In 2019, he began his freshman year at California State University, Northridge studying film production. Later that spring semester,  Covid-19 hit, making everything virtual. He continued his sophomore year through Zoom, however, felt disconnected. He didn’t feel like he was learning anything regarding his major and wanted to do more.

Having so much time on his hands, he decided to learn video making and editing on his own by looking at YouTube tutorials. Eventually, once he began feeling more certain of his skills, Welch signed up on Fiverr, offering $5 music video edits.   

"I probably did 40 of those just to teach myself. I wasn't doing it for the money. I really just wanted to learn," said Welch.   

Practice makes perfect, as the saying goes, and Welch is an example of this. Still taking classes, he would find time to develop his skills. 

It wouldn’t take much time for Welch to reach out to his local production company looking to strengthen his skillset by offering help and learning how to shoot on set. He saved enough money to buy his own camera and began networking. 

He offered to shoot videos for people he met and did around 50 videos for free. 

“I did so many free videos”, said Welch. 

One person led to another, and soon Welch began building up his reputation. He began meeting many artists, some that he works with today, and started indulging in the underground music scene. 

He used Discord to connect with artists all over the country and befriended an artist who would introduce him to the underground music scene by inviting him to the Discord server. There he met up-coming artists getting their foot in the door in the industry, many of which blew up on TikTok. 

“One of them had that huge TikTok song that I did. All of them actually have had some pretty big TikTok songs. They all just went up a lot”, said Nick. “ From there, I went up with them because I was doing all their videos.”  

Having worked from one person to the next, he met people who represented labels and did work for other companies. From word of mouth, people knew Welch for having a good work ethic and a strong portfolio.

It was a snowball effect for Welch. Meeting one person led to another, landing him on a shoot for another artist. His connections had skyrocketed.

“At first, I only knew one person at a label, but then now it's like, I know people at every single label and when they have a video that they feel like I would fit in, they send it to me,” said Welch.

In the summer before his junior year, he was offered to go to Miami and New York to shoot music videos. However, these weren’t just any other songs at the time, these were viral TikTok songs. This was the perfect opportunity to launch his career. 

The only issue was that this meant he had to choose between school or taking the offer, fully dedicating himself to filming. 

“I just took the chance. My parents weren't very happy about it. They would not talk to me for two weeks after, but they see now,” said Welch.  

Rebuilding a relationship with his parents became one of his greatest challenges.

Welch was raised to believe that without a college education that meant an uncertain future. His parents only desired the best for him, and were worried that he’d drop everything to chase a dream. 

“I told them, it'll just be for a semester, and we'll see how it goes. But in the back of my head, I was like, I know what I'm doing with this. And I kind of knew I wasn't going to go back, even though every time I talked to them, it was like, oh, yeah, I might go back,” said Welch.

Welch knew what he wanted to do. He had found his passion and wanted to prove to his parents that he would be okay. 

At first, it was difficult to balance work and family. It took time, but once his family began to see how successful his videos were doing and being able to financially support his own, they understood. 

After the release of those videos, which are his biggest videos to date, he very quickly began getting other jobs. 

“I understand it's hard for them. But now that they see that I can support myself fully and I'm getting to do all these things and go to these places and work with people that they know too, it's a lot easier,” said Welch. 

Welch is happy with what he does and wouldn’t have had it any other way. He likes working with artists he listens to and being out at different sets. 

Still, he’s his biggest critic. He believes there’s always room for improvement.

“I like the work I do. I love doing it, but I always feel like I can do better. And I don't know, that's kind of, like, what pushes me,” said Welch. “I eventually want to cross off the list of everyone that I want to work with.”

Dropping out of college doesn't inherently mean an individual is unable to be successful. Think of Bill Gates, most known for his role as the co-founder of Microsoft, or Steve Jobs, co-founder and former CEO of Apple and Pixar, both millionaires who never graduated college.

Welch is doing what he loves and doesn't need a college degree to achieve that. He did what best suited him.

“I'm like a pretty introverted, antisocial person. So the fact that I was able to kind of network myself through online and everything and kind of just do stuff on my own, sit at home and learn by myself and on YouTube and everything, that just is something that worked better for me,” said Welch.

Would you recommend going to college: Yes