I love musical theater and am certain that I want to major in it, but I would also like to major in something like journalism, or professional writing of some sort. I know that with a rigorous BFA in MT it becomes nearly impossible to dabble in another subject, but if there are any universities with a BFA in MT that have and allow a double major in journalism as well, I would love to know. Obviously, in my situation, a BA is most likely better suited if I were to attempt to complete two majors in the standard four years so any schools that offer a BA in musical theater and a degree journalism/writing would be information that would be greatly appreciated. Auditon or non-auditon does not matter much to me, but it would help if the school was in a location where internships and opportunities are abundant. Any information on any of these categories would be helpful. Thank you!
You could do a BA Theatre with an MT minor and a double major in Journalism at Cal State Northridge. Theatre productions are wonderful at CSUN and they have a beautiful new theatre called the Valley Performing Arts Center right on campus. Not sure if you’re in CA to get in-state tuition, but both the theatre program and the journalism school have well-connected alumni and professional opportunities abound in Los Angeles. Northridge is a suburb of LA in the center of the San Fernando Valley. You’d probably need a car or a good public transit + uber budget to navigate an internship in this big city.
Ohio Northern has had MT’s who have double and triple majored.
Honestly I think most schools will allow you to double major. But whether or not you can complete it in 4 years is often difficult at best. Some of that will depend on how many credits with which you enter college. If you are exempted from a lot of gen eds because you took AP or dual credit classes in high school, your schedule is more free to pursue other subjects. But sometimes that isn’t enough. There are times where it can’t be done in the 4 years because required classes for one major conflict with the scheduled times for a required class in your 2nd major. This has nothing to do with the rigor of the BFA - simply logistics in scheduling. You can ask if any classes can be done online or in the summer to help with this. But be aware this typically requires an additional cost.
So make sure you distinguish between whether they allow you to double major, and how feasible the double major you want to do is scheduling wise with your BFA major. Because many schools will “allow” it. It just may not be able to be done within 4 years because of scheduling conflicts.
I second the excellent points that @vvnstar made. My d has plenty of room in her schedule to do a double major on a credit hour basis, but it is basically impossible to actually schedule all the courses that she needs to complete another major due to time conflicts between particular required classes. For example, at Western Michigan, where they encourage double majors, MT studio and dance classes take up large blocks of time during periods when other departments like to schedule their courses with labs or project/discussion sections. Even completing a minor can be hard for this reason.
Theatre departments, being on the whole rather small, rarely are able offer more than one section per course and tend to only teach courses once per year (Fall or Spring but not both), especially for upper division courses. This results in very limited scheduling flexibility for students trying to double major.
Whenever my d goes to talk to a departmental adviser about double majoring and they ask what her major is, they wince when she says, “Musical Theatre.”
True that you can double major at many schools but it is the logistics that become very complicated. If you are willing to go another year it would make it much easier. However even then depending on the minor or major you are attempting the logistics may be a problem no matter what. That is were a bigger school or more polar subjects makes a big difference.
NYU allows double majors (D has several friends who will complete them) and the 3/2 split between studio days and academic days makes that easier to schedule - though I know kids often do J terms or summer terms to keep courseload in check
Yes to all of the above. And regarding my CSUN recommendation above, some might argue it’s hard enough to graduate in one major with the classes you need in 4 years at a state school, due to some impacted programs. As for my Rider son, he did complete dual degree BA Arts Admin and BFA MT in 4 years, but it required several J-Term and summer online classes – probably somewhere in the $6000 range extra. He came in with 32 AP Credits that were accepted and tested out of some music theory/piano classes in the MT major. Even still, Arts Admin was one of only a few “other” majors that could work with MT because some of the classes counted for both programs. It was tight and I’m not sure in hindsight if he would have done it. It was a lot of extra work when his classmates were enjoying much-needed time-off. Between us (LOL) I think he would have preferred just focusing on performing, but once he committed he finished.
When we visited Elon they presented several seniors who were graduating (in four years) with a double major. My child does not go there, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
This was exactly my situation this year! I’m planning to double major in MT and journalism and will be attending American University this fall. It’s definitely possible at AU and the advisor I spoke to said they’ve had a bunch of people successfully complete the two majors in the past. Also, D.C. has lots of opportunities for both theatre and journalism 
This thread has a list of schools where it’s possible to double major in general: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/musical-theater-major/1641510-musical-theatre-double-major-full-list-p1.html. However, a lot of the schools off that list probably won’t let you double major in MT and journalism specifically. I have my own specific list of schools I looked into, after doing an insane amount of research and finding out that you can definitely double major in both musical theatre and journalism/communications that those schools. I also put a few schools with BAs in Theatre that had solid journalism departments as well. Here it is:
*Note: all of these are audition based programs except where I specified it was non-audition
University of Michigan - BFA MT / Communications (dual degree program offered with College of Literature, Science, & the Arts)
Northwestern University - BM Vocal Performance with MT certificate / Journalism (5 year dual degree program with Bienen and Medill is offered; you can’t double major in journalism with the BA in Theatre unfortunately, I emailed the department head at the beginning of the year and I found out it’s not possible. You can double major and graduate in 4 years with something less specific and intensive like English.)
New York University - BFA or BM MT / Journalism (both Steinhardt and Tisch will allow you to double major, I auditioned for Steinhardt)
Harvard University - BA Theatre, Dance, and Media (look into this if you’re interested in both theatre and journalism and have solid grades because this is a really cool new program!)
Penn State University - BFA MT / Journalism
American University - BA MT / Journalism
James Madison University - BA or BM MT / Journalism
Ohio Northern University - BFA MT / Multimedia Journalism
Tulane University (non-audition) - BFA MT / Journalism
Fordham University - BA Theatre / Journalism
Rutgers University (non-audition) - BA Theatre / Journalism (The BFA in Acting is an audition based program but you can’t double major with a BFA there so I applied for the BA)
Some additional notes:
I also applied to Emerson, but for just journalism, not MT, because in case I didn’t get in for MT anywhere and I majored in just journalism in college, I’d still want to be in an artsy school in a city where I can take outside classes and where there are lots of theatre opportunities even if I wasn’t a theatre major.
Also I THINK UCLA might allow an MT major to double major in journalism? Didn’t end up auditioning there, but if you look into it and find out if you can definitely double major there, that could be an option for you - it’s a BA MT program too so I assume they’re flexible with double majoring the way that American is.
Okay, this is such a mess of a post, but I hope it was useful and that everything goes well for you!
Hey, this was exactly my situation this year! I’m planning to double major in MT and journalism and will attend American University this fall. I’ve already spoken to an adviser and I found out that there have been multiple people who have successfully completed both majors in four years, it’s an BA MT program designed for you to be able to double major. I’d highly recommend it if you definitely want to double major! Also, since it’s in D.C. where there are so many newspapers and theaters, AU is located in a great place for both MT and journalism.
There really aren’t that many BFAs that will allow you to do that specific combination of MT and journalism, though. It was so hard for me to find a solid list of schools in the beginning, you need to be open to BAs if you definitely need to double major. A couple of people have already mentioned some of the schools I applied to where it’s definitely possible for an MT to double major with specifically journalism (UMich, NYU, Ohio Northern) but I also want to add that it’s possible at James Madison University, Tulane University, and I THINK Penn State and UCLA?
I also applied to a bunch of other schools that had double major/dual degree options with something close to MT. I added a bunch of BA Theatre schools where journalism/communications was also strong, including Rutgers and Fordham. Other programs you could look into include Harvard’s Theatre, Dance, and Media program and Northwestern’s 5-year dual degree program in BM Vocal Performance with a MT certificate and BS Journalism (if you’re open to other options, you could do a BA Theatre with a MT certificate and BA English double major. It’s not possible to do both Journalism and Theatre, however - I checked at the beginning of the year).
I hope this helps!
Northwestern, UMich and NYU are excellent schools to double major in both MT and something like journalism/writing - I’m double majoring in MT and international relations next year @ NYU!
Also I’m sorry for basically posting the same information twice, I didn’t think my post went through the first time lol.
It’s not that it’s impossible to double major but it’s difficult to be in shows and complete everything in four years even with AP/DE/IB credits.
Also depends if you want your extra classes to be in MT classes, i.e. more dance, acting, singing, stage work etc or in your second major:)
It all depends, but I know here at Ohio Northern you can double major in any BA program (with your BFA in MT) in the College of Arts and Sciences. Some students here have double majors here such as PR, Communications, Psychology, Physics, etc. Also here you can double major in BFA International Theatre Production (our theatre design/stage management/production major) with your Musical Theatre major as well. Minors are definitely an option as well, as many students have two or three minors.
This might not be what you want to hear, but as a MT student, I would recommend that you REALLY think about what you want. REALLY THINK ABOUT IT. The only reason you should major in MT is because that’s ALL you want to do, because you’re obsessed, because you couldn’t see yourself happy in any other field. I’m a few years into a BA and some popular advise is that if you could be happy doing something else, do that instead. Think about the competition here - double majoring means that you have less energy to put into MT than all the other kids who are giving it their all, and you’re also probably falling behind the kids in your second major as well. Statistically, not many MT students are actually successful, but the ones who are are giving it 100%.
Something the department chair said at the school where my D is pursuing a rigorous MT BFA, and which I believe is relevant here: Musical Theatre itself is a triple major: acting, dance, and voice.