I am a junior in high school and am trying to figure out a way to double major in acting and physics. I am really interested in USC’s BFA acting program because I am interested in acting for the screen and not really interested in theatre or theatre history that the BA’s classes teach. Does anyone know if a double major with the BFA is possible or another university that has good programs that allows double majors between an acting and physics program?
Hi @curiouselder , BFA programs are more rigorous conservatory-style programs which typically require more majors credits than a BA. I never say anything is impossible, but a BFA acting program is going to require daily work not only in classes, but in outside performance labs and productions as well as more coursework than a BA would have.
A BA program gives you more opportunity to double major. At my university, a BA program that offers focus in Acting, we had many students in our department double major, and even a few who double majored in physics or Bachelor of Science degrees.
Do you mind me asking why you’re not interested in the theatre or theatre history classes in a BA curriculum?
The USC BFA will take up most of your time – it will be VERY hard to double major. The BA gives you more flexibility. BFAs training is still mainly theater work. Also BFA programs are highly competitive (my daughter is a 4th year at Calarts). USC typically has a BFA class of 25-30 students per year. The BA will give you training and flexibility to do physics.
In general, you might be able to do a BFA if you really want to, but you’ll have to make some concessions and plan ahead. However, one concession might be that you can’t do a lab science as your other major. Science lab requirements rival the BFA studio requirements in amount of time you need to spend, and it’s really, really hard, if impossible, to fit both of those in. You could decide on something like public health as your other major and stay within the sciences, but a physics major may not be possible. Another concession is that you might not be able to do the double major at all at some schools with a BFA based on departmental requirements, so you should research each individual school and a school that might be your dream acting school might not be the one for you if you want to do both.
My daughter attended UMBC (which is well-known for its STEM majors, so you might want to look into it if Maryland is in your geographical area for college) and got a BFA in Acting and a BA in French. She had the advantage of coming in with more than 40 college credits from her high school AP and college-level-high-school-classes, so she had no core classes to take in college, which left room for the French classes. This might not work for some schools, as some will give you elective credit, but won’t give you credit for specific classes, so you’ll still have to take core classes. And even if you have AP sciences under your belt (like my daughter did), you might still have to take basic level courses in the sciences if you have a major or minor in those areas. Schools want to make sure that you know what they want you to know for your foundational knowledge, so they usually make you take the intro courses in your major, even if your AP credits would have covered them if you were a different major.
Also, toward the end of her college career, it was very difficult to finish both majors, as each had limited numbers of classes for the upper-level requirements, so if the one French class that she had left was at the same time as the one Acting class that she had left, she may have had to make a difficult decision to drop one. Fortunately, her French professors were flexible and helped her to complete all requirements.
People are giving you answers that are way too wishy-washy.
A BFA is much more intensive than a “regular” college major. If it’s possible to double major, it isn’t a true conservatory-style BFA. If you want both a science degree and intensive acting, get a science BA or BS – even double major in theater – and follow that with a MFA or one of the many excellent certificate programs. Circle in the Square, Esper, etc. I also recommend improv training at Second City or Upright Citizens Brigade.
Work on your writing as much as possible. Writer/actors can create their own opportunities.
I also recommend reading posts by @fishbowlfreshman here on CC. He or she has listed a variety of respected training classes for aspiring TV and film actors.
@prodesse and I will have to agree to disagree. Although I won’t be so rude about it.
We just sent my daughter’s deposit on CalArts BFA acting. I wonder if you could tell me a bit about your daughter’s experience there, if you have any sage advice. You could “pm” me? Thanks.