<p>Hi, I am currently a freshman with a biology major and a minor in theatre. I have always enjoyed science, particularly science, and have been good at it. I Would enjoy doing something in the science field with biology. However, I have always wanted to act in the acting field. I wanted to know if anyone knew how difficult it would be to double major in biology and theatre or if it would be worth it. I would really like to be in the acting field, but if things don't work out how I hope, I would like something to fall back on. Would it be best to minor in biology? Any advice would help. Thank you!</p>
<p>I know professors who would advise you to focus on biology altogether, especially if you want a “secure” future. I know college students who double-major and either drop it or end up staying longer to complete their degree because the fields are so demanding and don’t overlap. </p>
<p>I know it’s going to be difficult to double major or major/minor. I don’t know if you will find it to be worth it. That really depends on what you want.</p>
<p>I think you are too young to have to worry about a “secure” future . . . worry about security when you are older.</p>
<p>I have never seen the point of getting a “double major”. Are you going to have some sort of “double career”? Realistically, you are not going to be able to be BOTH a professional biologist AND a professional actor. You are going to do one as your profession, and the other as your hobby.</p>
<p>Re-reading your post, it sounds as though what you really want to do is become an actor, you just want the biology thing to “fall back on”. Some people say that actors who CAN fall back, do. And most of the folks who succeed as actors are people who make sure they have NOT given themselves something to fall back on, so they are much more motivated to succeed as actors (because that is all they have).</p>
<p>You might want to consider switching right round so that you are majoring in theatre and minoring in biology. I think most careers in biology more-or-less require graduate degrees anyways, so you can go and do the acting thing, and then when you have decided that isn’t working out you can go back and get your graduate degree in biology. There is no requirement that you major in the same thing in graduate school that you did as an undergrad.</p>
<p>But then of course there is no requirement that you must have a degree to become an actor, many succesful actors have no college degree at all.</p>
<p>KEVP</p>
<p>Having had a bio major who considered a double major/minor in music, and having a Theatre BFA who is considering a minor in an academic subject, I would say that you should major in what you love best, because usually you end up realizing that one subject either calls to you more personally or just truly takes too much of your attention for you to give enough to the other.</p>
<p>If your school really gives you time (and you can afford it), go ahead and double major. You’ll get the basics in both subjects - but you’re likely to have to go to grad school in whichever one you really want serious career training in. That’s not a terrible thing in itself. But know that in college you mostly will just get the basics in both.</p>
<p>When you say you see yourself with a career either in science or theatre, just what do you see? One thing that I’ll agree on is that unless you’re amazing lucky you won’t get full-time career jobs in theatre unless you put all of your effort into that, and it will be even harder if you don’t have the training and experience of a serious study of theatre in college. </p>
<p>HOWEVER - and I mean this very strongly - very few people have full-time career jobs in theatre, especially acting, while many, many people have rewarding and enjoyable lives with theatre in some way. If you’ve always wanted to enjoy being in theatre, you can do that whether you’ve majored, minored, done it as an EC, or never done it before. Theatre has a huge spectrum - paid jobs where you can support yourself (or manage to have big success, money and fame) require lots of training and lots of effort. But that is only a small fraction of people who do theatre, even professionally. The possibilities are broad - practically endless - except for the very top of the pyramid.</p>
<p>If you are someone who has lots of interests and can’t decide now, then let yourself be OK with focusing primarily on one track for a while, enjoying your other interests on the side when you have the chance, and changing your focus later on if you realize you want to do something different. Try not to think you can do it all at the same time - that will only cheat you of experiences and probably won’t give you good results in any of your areas of interest.</p>