<p>Okay, scold me if you must...I tried to search on this with old threads, but the words are too generic, and the search was all over the board. Sorry if this has been covered.</p>
<p>While we wait out these last few agonizing days until final decisions, can we talk student life? I know an MT's daily life will not be similar to many other majors, but is there any time to live outside the theatre? A part time job at the bookstore, football games and (do they do dances anymore?) ski trips?</p>
<p>I'm starting to feel like my son will never see the light of day the way some of the kids talk. Plus, with summer jobs in the theatre, it's not like they even have that break to look forward to. I know he LOVES theatre, and kind of eats sleeps and breathes it in H.S. anyway, but I want him to enjoy the college experience...like my husband says, "you only go around once." </p>
<p>My D is about to graduate from a BFA program, and you are right, it is pretty all encompassing. She attended Syracuse, a big university with a sports program and all sorts of activities – few of which she took advantage of. She did have a part-time job freshman year, but after that she was lucky enough to be cast frequently and was unable to fit a job into her schedule. We tried to encourage her to get out of the theater building and expand her horizons, but quite frankly she wasn’t interested. As you said, she eats, sleeps and breathes theater – and for her, that was the perfect college experience. (She was also a member of the Honors College, and did manage to fit in some honors classes; but it was not easy to find classes that fit into her schedule.)
During the summer, she did summer stock only once; the rest of the summers she preferred to live at home and work locally to save up some money. This year, after she graduates, she has a summer theater job lined up – she’s ready to get out there and start performing professionally.
In addition to being a mom, I am also a vocal/theater coach, with students in both BA and BFA programs. There are exceptions, but in general the BFA programs are pretty much what I described; if your son enrolls in a BA program, he will probably have a more relaxed schedule and more time to do typical college activities.</p>
<p>If your son has mastered strong time management skills, is accustomed to a very rigorous h.s. curriculum, and is willing to forego fun and frolic to deal with responsibilities, the answer should be a resounding “yes”! My daughter has had 26-27 hours of class per week since she was a freshman at her BFA program. During the week, she spends her time from 8:30 in the morning to 12 am involved in program responsibilities of one form or another, longer when in a show. She still finds time to hit the gym for an hour or so each day. She still finds time during the week to have dinner with friends, join them for a cup of tea. Her secret - she does not waste a minute of her time. She makes a schedule of each day’s tasks and activities and the time she will allot to each and then sticks to it. She is very focused and disciplined. She works efficiently. She moves like clockwork from one task to another, from one activity to another. If she finishes a task in less time than she scheduled, she uses the remaining time to get a jump in advance on other work. She maps out her school work so that she is rarely doing reading and written work the night before it is due.</p>
<p>On weekends, she goes out with friends to all sorts of activities. She also works 3 jobs on weekends: as an MC/Vocalist and Dance Manager for an entertainment company - the jobs are on Saturdays and Sundays, with occasional rehearsals on Sundays and client meetings during the evening or on weekends; she works as an intern for a wedding planner, again weekend work; and she occasionally works as a rep for Fossil watches at a Macy’s, usually around holidays and the work is on weekends or during a school break. She has the ability to juggle her jobs as she needs to. She goes out on weekends with her boyfriend. She plans on getting certified on weekends as a spinning instructor so that she can turn some of her weekday workout time into an income producer.</p>
<p>When she is in a show, she makes adjustments with her jobs; they are of the type where she has the flexibility to control her schedule. Weekend rehearsals do interfere with outside life but she just copes. Weeknight rehearsals just mean that she gets a couple of hours of less sleep as she gets back to her apartment at 11:15 pm and then puts in a couple of hours to stay ahead of the game instead of going to sleep.</p>
<p>It’s not easy and there are times she gets overwhelmed. When she is on winter or spring breaks, she totally disengages from school related stuff to the fullest extent she can and just recharges her batteries. She is able to do all of this because she learned the time management skills while in high school, developed the focus and self-discipline and is willing to keep her priorities straight. The benefit is that she has a very full life with close friends both in and outside of school and a variety of activities that give her a break from the cloistered life of a BFA program.</p>
<p>All of that being said, there is no doubt that her program commands the vast bulk of her time and energy and a BFA program is going to feel a lot more like a professional work environment with very long hours than the typical college life. Your life will center around the program and your friends and colleagues from the program. It just doesn’t have to be to the exclusion of everything else.</p>
<p>My D had a job on campus tutoring other students in music theory and English. Because it was next to the Music Building, she was able to work if she had a gap between classes. If she didn’t have students to tutor (no walk-ins or appointments) she was able to work on her own homework. She also had a paying job singing in a church choir on Sunday mornings with rehearsals on Wednesday evenings. She was able to work enough hours to earn spending money. She tried working off-campus one semester, but just was not able to work it into her schedule.</p>
<p>The manageability of a part-time job may vary, but the aspect that would make it more workable would be the type of job - something very flexible, or performance-related, or school-related (such as tutoring, manning a desk somewhere that would allow you to do schoolwork while there). The “typical” retail or restaurant job with a schedule distributed weekly would probably be impossible, unless the boss happened to be a supporter of the arts willing to work with the student.</p>
<p>As for other campus activities, I believe my D went to 1 (maybe 2) football games her entire 4 years - and 2 of those years, the stadium was across the street from her dorm! However, that was mostly a prioritization on her part. I never heard of a campus dance - (not to say they didn’t exist.) She did participate in other campus social events - probably moreso her first 2 years.</p>
<p>Students will manage to fit in what is important to them – they may not be able to make every game, but they will find time for what matters to them (they could give up an hour or two of Facebook time!)</p>
<p>I am sorry because this is really unrelated but talking about football games- D got free tickets to a Bengals playoff game sort of in the mix of auditioning. Went to the game, hated every minute of it, decided this would not be an important factor in her decision.
But D was torn between big 10 universities with the “real” college experience and conservatories/small liberal arts. D has been at an art school since fourth grade so did not have the ‘real’ high school experience either, part of her wants to find this in college.</p>
<p>Yes. There is time for a life. Although she has not found time for a job yet (ehem), she has found time to socialize…plenty. There have been football games. Basketball games. Frat parties. She has attended lots and lots of theatre. She also goes to the film archive just because to view old films. She has found time to workout. And come home because apparently the laundry machines don’t work at her school. (ehem.) So far, this term is the first term that has her doing more homework. Much more reading, partly because she is in an upper division theatre history class, and a lower division history course. She keeps busy with rehearsals for her school play and student films as well. When she is not doing school stuff, she heads to the beach, to Rodeo Drive, to Santa Monica, to Venice. Lots of places to go and do stuff. Its important, I think, to chose a place where the kid can be active and experience new and exciting things. So, in making the decision, make sure you check out the environs.</p>
<p>My son graduated from NYU (playwrights studio). The opportunities for theater involvement were so prolific that he was like a kid in a candy store. Generally speaking, he had discretionary time, but if he had worked, that time would have replaced some theater-related experience he would otherwise have chosen. He took supplementary dance/voice classes, audited additional courses within his studio, directed a musical, performed in some off off Broadway productions, choreographed other productions, was in an NYU main stage production, and got a minor in art history (etc). So… it depends… It would have been very difficult for him to have committed regular hours to a job, especially during his first year or so.</p>
<p>My son who is a senior (one more semester to go) has always had a job. He has had a work study job and a church job singing in the choir. Most of the work study jobs are good at working around rehearsals, some aren’t and he did have to quit one and find something else, but it did work out pretty well. At his school so many of the the MT/VP kids sing in church choirs they do not have rehearsals on Wednesday nights and schedule Sunday rehearsals after church. And he did join a fraternity. I think what he has done is when he is not in a show he is very busy with all of the other stuff. When in a show he would work less and socialize less.</p>
<p>My D is a BA Theatre student. A lot of the time she can’t fit in 8 hrs of sleep, eats on the run and only on very rare cases does she go to parties - usually only cast parties. 3 days a week her classes start at 8 and she gets up around 7 am with one period open for lunch and the last gets out at 5:30 and she finishes her homework around 2 AM…or so. The other 2 days she does get to sleep in till 11 AM and her last class is out at 4. Rehearsals are daily starting at 6-7PM going to 11 pm or beyond and on most weekends. She would have a LOT more time if she wasn’t in shows but she wouldn’t trade being in performances to do anything else. In her “free time” she runs to the grocery store, cleans her apartment and does her laundry. </p>
<p>Freshman year she did have a part time job, she did go to some football games and she lived in the dorm and hung out with the kids. So she got the “college experience”. I think she still has the college experience just living on a large campus and walking around. A fun evening is having a bunch of kids over and watching a DVD or Grey’s Anatomy and eating pizza. </p>
<p>I mentioned your question to my D and the majority of the college experience is drinking and partying. This is what most theatre kids don’t have time for. Not sure this is something to be upset about :)</p>
<p>One of the unexpected benefits of having a theatre kid in high school was that he was always too busy for “partying” and he and his friends seem to have that part figured out (at least for now), so that should be a bonus. Movie and a pizza is fine for him too.</p>
<p>Good to know about the job…we are in the process of setting up our expectations for next year, so maybe that will not be one of them, unless he can keep his eyes open for something really flexible. That will make his summer job(s) even more important…</p>
<p>I guess most theatre kids are great at time management, and it sounds like that was great training, with scholarships dependent on GPAs and a full schedule of rehearsals…man! I thought college was tough in the old days, but that makes my management major look like a vacation! Good thing they love it!</p>