<p>I'm looking to be a communications major with a musical theatre minor, or maybe even a double major in both musical theatre and communications (specifically broadcast journalism.) The only school I have found so far where I can do this is UNH. Any other schools you can suggest?</p>
<p>A BA path is more suited to your interests. </p>
<p>There are many possibilities.
Examples:
American University
Muhlenberg
James Madison
Northeastern
Indiana
Goucher
Towson
Northwestern
University of Southern California (USC)
Emerson (if you stick with the BA)
Chapman University</p>
<p>Remember, you can't just pick schools based on the majors they offer. I know nothing about your qualifications and so coming up with schools is very much related to your profile.</p>
<p>Thank you so much for your suggestions! I know, I have been looking at the BA programs but a lot of them are just for regular Theatre Arts and don't have a focus for MT. It's hard to get the best of both worlds where I can study MT but not be completely immersed in the program like I would be with a BFA.</p>
<p>At JMU we have students in the BA Musical Theatre Concentration who choose to add a second major in the School of Media Arts and Design. It is difficult to complete this within four years, but students who enter JMU with AP, IB, or dual enrollment credit have been able to complete both majors within four years (sometimes also taking a summer course hear and there).</p>
<p>If you would like more information feel free to PM me or email me.</p>
<p>Kate</p>
<p>I don't know if it's really possible to combine the 2 majors, but check with both TCU and Elon, because both have BFA in MT and both have great schools of communication in broadcast journalism.</p>
<p>Soozievt listed American University as a possibility for you. As a current MT student at AU I just have to voice my school pride! American is a great choice for any MT student who also still has other passions they'd like to pursue. They only offer a minor in theater (not MT) but they offer a BA in musical theater, and I know lots of students who manage to double major in MT and something else (I myself have slipped in a minor in Italian Studies). And from what I hear, we've got a great school of Communications too (and I checked- there's a BA in broadcast journalism).</p>
<p>Added bonus- Few cities are better than DC for theater AND communications. DC has a great theater scene (look up Olney theater, Signature theater in Arlington, Woolly Mammoth theater, Synetic theater, to name a few, not to mention Ford's and the Kennedy Center). And the jounalistic opportunities should be fairly obvious ;)</p>
<p>If you have any questions about AU, don't hesitate to message me! Good luck in your school searching.</p>
<p>erinexclamation. I just left U of Mich on our college tour and you definately can do a dual major with the BFA MT program. My s and I spent an hour in the MT office this morning and an hour with the LSA honors dept. and noone discouraged the plan. It indeed does take dedication and the desire to take a full load of no more than 18 credit hours per semester, but it can and is being done. Also, when visiting the engineering dept. this afternoon, we were told that over half of the U of M marching band are also engineering students. Another example of a dual major between engineering and the college of music, theatre and dance. Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana will also allow you to do it in combination with their BFA program. We are on our way to Elon tomorrow. Will report in when we have first hand info. Hang in there. It CAN be done!</p>
<p>Oh, and FYI. Ball State U just dedicated their state of the art communications and telecommunications center. It is the David Letterman center. It supposedly has higher tech equipment that in many of the studios in LA and NYC. It is well worth looking at! Oh, and their MT Program is a BFA as of this year and we were quite impressed with it.</p>
<p>britbrat...can you please clarify....</p>
<p>All of us had been saying that the BFA in MT CAN be combined with another major in LSA at UMichigan. Did you ask the MT department itself if their BFA in MT can be combined with engineering? The fact that the engineering majors are doing a degree in music or are in the marching band, I also suspected all along is possible. The one thing many of us question is the combo between BFA in MT and a degree in engineering and what the MT DEPT said about that specifically (not what the engineering dept. said). Thank you.</p>
<p>I do not know about the Marching Band at U of M, but at JMU many of the students in the Marching Band are not Music Majors.. I suspect that it may be similar at other schools.</p>
<p>Yes, the BFA can be combined with an engineering degree. It can be combined with a degree in the Ross school of business, the engineering college or the LSA. It is not common and it does make it difficult if you dont have the AP credits coming in to satisfy some of the gen ed req. for both majors, but it is offered and can be done. One suggestion to shorten the time was to take some of the gen ed requirements at a college back home in the summer that would transfer to U of M. The engineering college does not require you to declare a specific major until the end of the sophomore year. As long as a student does not attempt more than 18 credits per semester for both degrees, neither department has a problem with it as long as the requirements are fulfilled. U of M also has a different schedule in that there are 2 summer school sessions being that their spring semester is over by mid-April. The reason for my mention about the marching band is that in a previous post someone stated that when asking at an orientation if a marching band student could pursue an engineering degree at U of M, they were told "absolutely not"! That does not seem to be so being that the grad student who gave us the tour has a roomate who is in the marching band and is an engineering student. Just feeding back the info as I am getting it in person :)</p>
<p>Glad that you got the scoop about double majoring, britbrat1961!</p>
<p>That quote, though, about the orientation meeting with Mr Wagner was a bit different than recalled in your above post. The question noted was about being in the marching band while pursuing a BFA - not being in the marching band while an engineering student. This is what NotMamaRose posted: </p>
<p>"On my D's audition day, someone raised his hand and asked if he would be able to be in the Michigan marching band and do the BFA, and Mr. Wagner said it would be impossible, as the BFA takes too much time!"</p>
<p>Gotcha! Thanks for that clarification. I would think that being in the marching band would demand an awful lot of time especially in the fall and being in an engineering program as well would be demanding. I think the big difference here is the AP credits. When a student goes in with 31 AP credits in maths, sciences, history and economics, it shaves away a whole lot of gen ed and allows for classes to be taken in the place of the normal general ed. Indeed such a program could take as long as 5 years to complete the dual major, but it is not uncommon for a bachelors and masters to be completed in a total of 5 years at U of M and others. Anyway, that is the scoop for now.
Onward to the next school.</p>
<p>Good to know a double major can be done at UM. Trick there is getting in to the MT program!!!</p>
<p>Yes, during my D's audition, a boy who was about to audition for the MT program raised his hand and asked if he could be in the UM Marching Band and I distinctly heard Mr. Wagner say that it couldn't be done, and I think he said that was because the times when the band would meet would conflict with things a musical theater major would be doing.</p>
<p>Just to clarify, I did not post that an ENGINEERING student couldn't be in the marching band. I said that Mr. Wagner had answered a question about an MT major being in the band. This happened in Ann Arbor on a day when kids were auditioning for Musical Theatre, so the kid asking the question was a prospective performer, and not an engineer.</p>
<p>The original post could have been written by my daughter!</p>
<p>Soozievt - I wondered if I might be able to give you some profile info in hopes of hearing your thoughts about recommendations you’ve made for similar kids? If not, that’s OK. I looked for a place to send this just to you, but I’m new here and didn’t know how to go about that. </p>
<p>D is a Junior looking for Journalism (BA) and either a double major in Musical Theatre (BA) or a MT minor. I’m not a fan of the BFA for her. </p>
<p>We live in FL - she’ll have access to our state tuition program which will pay for 100% of tuition and books, so it’s quite likely that she’ll stay in-state. having said that, she fell in love with the DC schools for journalism (GWU, AU, and Catholic) and will apply and cross fingers for scholarship money. </p>
<p>D is not the best of test-takers (CR=740, M=550, W=650 1290/1940; ACT comp=29; will retake SAT in June and hopefully improve Math score) but is a strong student (4.11 weighted; 3.67 unweighted - at last check - Geometry final on Monday may lessen that stat - ack!) and hard worker at her college-prep Catholic school. She’s not an uber-student, but a good well-rounded kid. </p>
<p>She’s been doing school-based theatre since 6th grade. Moved from the chorus to big supporting roles pretty quickly and likes it there. (Just to show you her style - she recently played Muzzy in Thoroughly Modern Millie and was in Heaven! Accent! White face! Evil-doer! Fabulous!) She’s totally a character actor, not an engenue. She sings well, enough for solos in shows, but isn’t a bring-down-the-houser. Same with dance - strong enough to be a troupe leader, but not a spotlight dancer. Stronger in acting. Two school shows each year in high school plus summer stock every year since 8th grade at the local community theatre. There are about four weeks a year when she’s not in rehearsals for something (and the 4 weeks aren’t together!) Her drama teacher is an honest source of information and supports her continuing her drama studies in college. (I’m requiring it take the form of a double major or a minor.) No awards or anything like that. I’d call it a bit more than just a provincial talent, but way less than others she’ll encounter if she pursues this. </p>
<p>Again, she loved AU - which was one of the schools you mentioned. While we were there we focused totally on Journalism and didn’t explore theatre at all, so we still don’t know much on that score. (pardon terrible and unintentional pun)</p>
<p>She also loved Rollins - which is 5 minutes away which is disappointing to her. Surprisingly, even with her connection to the local community theatre, we don’t know anyone attending the school for theatre. I think it’s a BFA too. </p>
<p>I’ve read your (and other people’s) postings about UCF and FSU. I get the feeling that, since they offer a BFA, they don’t support double majoring. Is that a misread on my part?</p>
<p>UF has a great Journalism program. But I don’t know anything about MT there. Do you? </p>
<p>Any other thoughts? In-state? Out-of-state? (granted, out-of-state would only happen with scholarship that rivaled the Bright Futures in-state option - I’m a single-parent school-teacher making less than 50K/yr living a modest life with little extra money at the end of each paycheck.)</p>
<p>I have great misgivings about supporting the theatre thing in college - having been raised and living in a family where the purpose of college is to become employable. But I have equal misgivings about denying her a world which has embraced her and fed her soul for so long. Any advice on that count would be greatly appreciated. </p>
<p>Thank you!</p>
<p>A student of mine attends AU and loves it after her first year. The MT program seems quite comprehensive for a BA, and seems to be growing. I believe she is also double-majoring – perhaps in biology? This sort of program is a good choice if you are not interested in a BFA. </p>
<p>Students who study theater – whether in a BFA or BA – learn many valuable life skills that can be applied to many other professions. Keep in mind that what you do in college only defines you for those 4 years. Whether or not your daughter becomes a professional actress, theater training will not have been a waste of time. It will make her more self-confident and able to think on her feet. How can that possibly be a bad thing? I understand your concerns about employability – but quite frankly, there are no guarantees in ANY profession these days.</p>
<p>1sttimemom- University of Michigan allows for a BFA in MT and BA in another major and one of the ones that works well is journalism. If you want to stay in FL, UCF will let you double major but it will take you a while longer to get out of school especially with the requirements of their MT program, but journalism at most schools requires a double major and at UCF it does b/c I looked into it for myself so that may be another option and Bright Futures actually will let you extend over the 120 credits if you write in to them the program you are doing and the credit requirements. I know you said you didn’t want a BFA, but those were two I could think of off of the top of my head. I’m sure soozie will have tons of options to send your way.</p>
<p>Thank you both so much. </p>
<p>onstage - you mentioned the thing that I find most valuable about the theatre training (besides the wonderful people!) - flexibility, expression, engagement, teamwork, creativity, and empowerment it gives its learners. Not to mention that I found myself encouraging her desire to explore journalism and then reading more and more about how that’s an industry in flux that provides no more security than acting. So, if she gets all those things I mentioned from theatre studies and strengthens her writing, analysis, critical reasoning, and insights with Journalism - maybe between the two there’ll be a living! 
I’m so glad that theatre isn’t the only thing she wants to study.</p>
<p>“only for those four years” - I’m going to work on remembering that throughout this process. Thanks!</p>
<p>Bird - thanks! I don’t know that she’s talented enough to stand out in the audition pools at UMich, but wow, what a program! Maybe we’ll make it an uber reach! :)</p>
<p>I just realized that something I said probably didn’t come out the way I heard it in my head…</p>
<p>“I’m so glad that theatre isn’t the only thing she wants to study.”</p>
<p>She’s very passionate about majoring in theatre (incredibly so), but she’s also very interested in Journalism and writing for a living… it’s not a slight interest that she’s just picking up 'cause she has to… it’s a genuine interest and something she gets excited about when she imagines herself doing it! </p>
<p>I meant it as “hooray - she has many interests - that creates more options”, not “thank God she doesn’t just want to do that silly theatre thing”. </p>
<p>I didn’t mean to slight theatre. Not a day passes that I don’t say a prayer of gratitude that she has found and been embraced by the theatre world… it’s a very special universe that’s given this odd-duck and only-child a non-judgemental place to be and the closest thing to siblings that she’s likely to ever have. </p>
<p>Anyway - just wanted to clear that up in case I offended. It was unintentional. I think it’s one of those things that doesn’t come out the same in person and in print. ;)</p>