Career Choices: What can I do?

[ArthurLM]

<p>Hello, College Confidential!</p>

<p>I am a senior in high school and college decisions have never been so stressful. Therefore, I have a few questions regarding my possible major and where it can take me.
A little bit about myself: I am outgoing and a good student. I have been playing the piano and singing since an early age and have always been surrounded by music. I lived in New Jersey my entire life, but moved to Florida around 3 years ago.</p>

<p>As I just mentioned, I have always been interested and involved in music. However, due to some people I met and performances I saw, I recently became passionate about theatre. Even though I do not have much acting experience, I believe I could become involved in theatre in the future somehow. I even considered majoring in musical theatre in college. However, I know that majoring in music or theatre (no offense to those majors out there) is very good but is also tough. A constant flow of money after college is not guaranteed and I would like to have that luxury.</p>

<p>My father is a very strategic man and works in business a lot. I have worked over the summers with some real estate businesses and I have been to my father's workplace as well. Naturally, I received some of my father's strategic thinking skills and I realized that I enjoy business and managing things. I always plan what I'm going to do before I do it, I keep everything (<em>everything</em>) organized, and I love it when things work out to everyone's advantage. But where does the music and theatre come in? I want to major in business because I think it will open many doors... but I cannot just let go of the arts. The performing arts is very competitive and I don't think I have enough talent (especially acting) to be very successful in that. Maybe with more experience I'll be able to be on Broadway or something related.
Then I realized the following: If I love managing things and I love theatre and music, why don't I do something that combines the two? I discovered stage management. I loved the idea of it because I would be in charge of many things, dealing with many and different types of people, making sure everything is in place, being social all the time, and I would be surrounded by theatre and music (if it's a musical). I found some colleges that offer things like an arts management major, but I feel that it may limit me to business that only has to do with the arts. Therefore, I kinda want to stick with general business. That way, many more doors will be open and, if I change my mind about stage management, I can use my degree for some other business. I also looked into minoring in psychology (which also interests me because my mother is a social worker and I enjoy helping people and understanding how our brains work) which I think is a very good course, especially with theatre and music. Also, although I am not majoring in theatre or music, I will become involved in all the groups and plays available wherever I go to college.</p>

<p>Based on all you guys who have experience with these things, do you think majoring in business (or business management) and minoring in psychology is a good mix? Do you think that even though I will not major or minor in theatre or music, I will have a chance at performing or becoming a stage manager?</p>

<p>Lastly, right now, I am highly considering attending Florida State University. I know it's considered a party school, and I am a Christian, but I believe that they have a very strong fine arts program and I think I will be able to prosper, learn a lot, and make lots of connections there.
Any thoughts?
Thank you! (Sorry for the super long message)</p>

[jotucker83]

<p>Arthur, </p>

<p>Well, as I always preach, you are looking to construct a career and you need to always do the following (in this order):</p>

<p>1.) Discover what your skills, talents and passions are. This comes through soul searching, taking various career assessment tests, and just thinking intuitively, by the age of 16 you pretty much know what you are good at and what you aren’t good at in a generic sense. </p>

<p>2.) Then you have to research the United States market (or if you plan on working overseas, that market in particular) across ALL of the available industries and ALL of the positions listed within those industries. From there, you have to determine where your skills, talents and passions fit in within those industries. </p>

<p>3.) Once you have done the above, now you want to finish our your career plan with pinning down which are the top 5 positions you want to go for, determine the promotional ladder of those positions which include what it takes to get into entry level, experienced level and management level and what the worse case minimum pay would be for each level. From this information you can determine IF you need college and or trade school (or drama school), and based on the estimated amount of pay you will make which school to choose which should be in line with one you can AFFORD. </p>

<p>So this is what you must do, a lot of work right? Either you will do this work right now, or you will bump your head through life and life will cause you to do this work through experience. The second option is the long and hard one, it’s much more efficient to sit down and conduct all of this research and planning RIGHT NOW (literally start right now) instead of bumping your head through life and life teaching you THE HARD WAY. </p>

<p>In relation to other questions you had in your post, the problem right now is that you haven’t done the research above and that’s what you really need to do. Majoring in general business, theatre, or psychology are HORRIBLE majors because they are all liberal arts majors even though general business isn’t per say, it’s very similar to that of a liberal arts degree because it doesn’t build a specific SKILL. </p>

<p>If from doing the research above you think that you should work in the entertainment industry, there’s absolutely NO REASON you ought to be in ANYBODY’S college. You need to be in drama school and networking heavily within the industry to land local roles, state roles and expanding nationally. A college degree in theatre is the biggest waste of money there is, go to drama school. </p>

<p>If you think you want to do business, well, business is very generic, what section of business? Everything is business. </p>

<p>Do the research I told you do above and then I think you can start to really truly answer most of your own questions. </p>