Just looking for opinions from people who are familiar with the theatre arts program at CSULB, specifically for theatre arts with emphasis on technical production. I’m trying to figure out if CSULB or CSUF has a better program than the other, or if they are pretty much equal in terms of opportunities and offerings and faculty experience? Thank you!
Don’t go to CSULB’s theatre program. You will regret that life choice by the time you hit your late 20s, I can almost guarantee it. The students are hostile and unpleasant, the place abounds with pranksters, and some of the staff is extremely unprofessional. I recently bumped into one of their graduate students who had just graduated. The individual was working for minimum wage in customer service, as the statistics would have predicted. The rent in Long Beach averages about $900 a month for a small studio or 1 bedroom. When you’re older, you’re going to want to be able to take care of yourself, your friends and your family.
But it can’t hurt to give it a try. If you don’t see a future for yourself in it after a while, you can switch majors fairly easily at CSULB if you don’t mind taking your time. Or, you can minor in it. The best technical workers I’ve seen at theatres actually have backgrounds in IT though.
I forgot to mention that they’re not even good pranksters. One of their favorite tactics is catfishing, followed by a sort of hybrid doxxing- either of which has a coat a slime on it an inch thick, as far as I’m concerned. But they’re clumsy as hell at it to boot. I’m not just talking about the students participating in it either; I mean that some of the staff seem to think it’s a great way to live your life. It’s amazing to me that the still-untamed internet culture would have a leg up, morally, than institutes of “higher education” across the country. I phrase it that way because I’ve found this to be a commonly-accepted tactic of other theatre departments as well.
Here’s one example of CSULB’s love of offline catfishing in particular though. On the day of orientation, some people auditioned to go on the “performance track.” The department literally thought it would be funny to stage a scene before holding the auditions in which they planted current students among the transfers to wait to be auditioned, called up the plants, and the instructor listened to the plants’ scripted auditions. The instructor was arbitrarily mean, cutting each plant’s audition down with a slew of nasty remarks. Then one of the “auditioning” students called another one a “bitch” and a staged fist fight broke out.
At one point during or after all of this, someone stood up in front of us and said something to the effect of, “There’s always someone watching you.” They weren’t saying, “Jesus loves you,” that’s for certain. I’m not sure who you’d have to think you are to feel entitled to be that way.
Well, that particular incident just happened to be art imitating life because students have called me a bitch in class, some of the instructors have been extraordinarily nasty to me, and I hear other students and residents of the area using that slur against females all over campus, on the bus, in town, etc.
Do you really want to be in an atmosphere for years on end in which things like that are okay? That’s not something you’re going to evade by going to CSUF’s theatre program, and it’s not something likely to change anytime soon (if ever).
Now the best trolls I’ve seen have backgrounds in years of programming. I’ve noticed attempts at migrating this kind of social engineering to the digital world too. But I think it’s a bad idea to troll for malicious intent, although I do admire a good one. Fortunately though, the rickety ticketing systems theatre departments depend on haven’t caught the attention of a real cracker yet.