<p>I am so stressed about college right now since I'm a senior. I know that i want to do theatre: acting, directing, producing and everything to do with it. My passion is to be on stage or behind the camera but i've always loved every aspect of it. No, I'm not one of those people who wants to be famous and wants to be a star, I just want to be an artist. I know that New York is the place to be, but i have never been very fond of the city. I have always been a beach girl, i love the outdoors and I love the warm weather. I know I want to be in Los Angeles. I've been thinking a lot about studying theatre at a community college and doing other projects on the side. It's not that I don't want to commit to a 4 year college, but it is so expensive, especially being an international student who can't get a scholarship for freshman year. Is community college a bad idea? I was thinking santa monica college. And does anybody have any reasonable housing ideas?
anlynw is online now</p>
<p>There are advantages and disadvantages to starting out at a community college. The advantages are that it’s affordable, it’s a bit of an easier transition, and many of them - I would say probably most though I don’t have data to back that up, but I know many do have faculty that are extremely caring and available to their students. Community colleges are obviously teaching based, not research based. The other kids will vary from slackers to dedicated kids who are going to go on to big things - like any freshman class at a state school with not difficult admission standards.</p>
<p>The problem with community college might come in when you try to transfer. For some things it absolutely won’t make any difference at all. For some things it might. It’s going to entirely depend on the program you want to transfer into.</p>
<p>It will almost always be a problem for someone trying to get a BFA, because unlike many majors where “the first two years are all the same anyway”, you actually have almost all your classes, except one or maybe two, concentrating in your field of study from the first semester. So you will be getting those basic classes spread out almost the whole four years - you’ll be still getting your core educational requirement of social studies and science your 5th semester that others got as a freshman. Which means you got a bunch of your concentration classes your first four semesters, if you went to the university right off the bat, and very seldom do classes in a BFA program transfer. Often not even from another 4 year university. </p>
<p>From what I understand that won’t be as much of a problem with a BA, but then it will depend on the school. If you are going to an accredited community college and take courses that are pretty universal and solid, and go to a state school, it is highly likely your courses will transfer, but if it’s a private school you’d better double check. The school’s website will have a course equivalency page and you can check the course numbers to see what the course equivalency is, and if there’s going to be a problem you’ll see it ahead of time that way. You might not be sure where you’d want to transfer to but you can pick out a few schools and look to get an idea.</p>
<p>As to the quality of theater at community colleges, it’s like 4 year schools - some are what I call token departments (they have one because most schools do but the department is apparently not a big priority to anyone) and some are really good. It’s going to depend a lot on the quality of the director, of course. Our local cc has a really good department run by a director who keeps current and even though this is a little backwash redneck town, where support for the arts can be dodgy, it’s sort of the nucleus for people in the community who appreciate that there’s a big old world out there and who are open minded and, well, artsy. You know, like theatre people are. 
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<p>My daughter’s director at the Shakespeareance camp she took this summer was raving about the cc program in a town not much bigger than ours here in Texas, on account of how strong the director is. I assume if he was impressed enough to tell my daughter she should go there (we aren’t, because 4 year is what she needs, but it’s good to know) that it must be a pretty strong program. So there are some out there.</p>
<p>I recall hearing about some cc’s in CA that had good theater depts but I can’t remember which, hopefully someone will mention it. </p>
<p>Some cc’s have dorms. Ours does. The way most people keep housing affordable if you rent an apartment or house is to have roommates.</p>
<p>If you are not too concerned about getting a college degree, you might also consider a 2-year program trade school, like AMDA, which has a location in LA. (They also have a BFA degree available, I’ve heard.)</p>