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At 24, Jana Pochop put her newly minted history degree aside and took off for the folk singers' school of hard knocks.

She graduated from the University of New Mexico in December 2005, and last year she headed to the mecca for singer/songwriters: Austin.

"January is one of those new-start kind of months," she said of watching her friends graduate with impressive degrees like political science or head off to medical school.

"I like to say I'm in grad school for folk music. And I'm learning a lot."

She has been blogging about the experience on her Web site, www.janapochop.com.

"It's been a pretty interesting year," Pochop said. "It's something I had to do."

It was a bold move for an unproven performer.

"I moved out here blind and didn't know anyone," she said. "But a lot of singer/songwriters I respect live out here or are based out here. And Austin didn't seem as intense as New York or L.A."

One of her fast friends is Susan Gibson, who wrote the hit "Wide Open Spaces" for the Dixie Chicks. Gibson invited Pochop to open for her on a tour of New Mexico next week. The tour brings them to Albuquerque on Thursday.

Pochop is fighting to stand out among the pack of female singer/songwriters.

"I was concerned about the congestion, moving to Austin - there's a lot of them in the genre," she said.

But she was relieved to find a camaraderie. "Everyone's into sharing," she said.

Austin, home of the mega music festival South by Southwest, can be intimidating.

"You can't spit and not hit a guitarist or a songwriter," Pochop said. "Some nights I think it's a little depressing. But it's great. . . . Some of them are cobbling together income streams as an independent artist."

She said the level of talent can be intimidating. She saw Pam Tillis play for free in a parking lot during South by Southwest in March. And the band Redd Volkaert is the house band on Wednesdays at a local joint, featuring Cindy Cashdollar, a dobro and steel guitar player who has backed Bob Dylan, Van Morrison and Tom Petty.

"And that's just the free live show at the taco bar on Wednesday nights," Pochop said. "It's crazy.

"Sometimes it makes me want to run home and hock my guitars. And alternatively, it makes me say, `That's awesome,' and go back home and write a song."

She calls her music "thoughtful folk-pop." She says she has been told that her music features a lot of traditional bluegrass chords with pop melodies.

While a move to Austin might sound impulsive, Pochop has a plan. She said she is working on a career model with a business partner, Josh Keenan, whom she met during an internship at KNME-Channel 5. She said his input allows her to focus more on the creative side.

"We have the same mantra about life," she said. "We both want to do this for a living. But the ultimate goal is not to max out your paycheck. It's to have a positive impact and to use your talent creatively."

For now, it's not about the money.

"The goal is to make the living I'd make working at a desk," she said. "I don't really need hundreds of thousands of dollars."

To pay the bills, Pochop works for the 4-H program in county government. It gives her a regular schedule and allows her to perform on nights and weekends. And it gives her an incentive to make it in music.

"That's the nature of government jobs - there's no place for me to move anywhere. So I don't have to worry about climbing the career ladder," she said. "So I can concentrate on climbing the career ladder musicwise."

Making a full-length album and establishing her own label are part of her one-year plan. She has a five-year plan, too. And she was tweaking a short-term tour plan that would hit Houston, San Antonio and Dallas when Gibson raised the ante.

"We had a six-month plan, and then Susan said, `Hey, come and play New Mexico,' and that's opened up some doors and changed some things," Pochop said. "So there's even a three-month plan. I'm excited."

She said she is eager to hit the road and see America - and report back through her songs.

"That's the reason I want to be a musician, because I think it's a folk musician's job to do that."