I took two courses at University on Storytelling and Oral Narrative. Sounds fancy doesn't it? It doesn't make me a better story teller than anybody who has been telling stories for years without the course but it has given me a little more appreciation for storytellers and storytelling.

One of the immediate advantages I can see for the course would be meeting other people with similar interests. This is very stimulating and great fun on its own. It would be particularly useful for those who have grown up in an area where there wasn't a lot of interest.

You should also have access to various sources for material and be able to research songs well. Whether a student does this or not will depend on their abilities and tastes.

Ideally you can combine a knowledge of Italianate influences on Barbara Allen with a gut feeling of what the song means to you and others. The danger lies in substituting one sort of knowledge for another without understanding the difference.

You could become experts on the literary, documented, backgrounds of various songs which can then help or hinder further personal research into them.

I've never considered University courses as job training which is why I have taken them and remain unemployed. I think it would be a lot of fun to take these courses.