Student Blog: Back, back, back again!

Intermission is over! My second semester at NYU Tisch as a musical theater student has just begun, and I'm busier than ever. I immediately dove right back into my packed schedule and I'm ready to devour the second half of my freshman year.

The BFA program at NYU differs from other musical theater programs because three days of the week I only have conservatory classes, and two days a week I have my academics. On Mondays and Wednesdays I have the same academic classes, with the exception of a private voice lesson that I only have on Wednesday mornings. Shoutout to my voice teacher who listens to me squawk at the ripe hour of 10:30am! I take Intro to Theatre Studies and The World Thru Art, which is paired with a lecture I have to attend every few weeks. These classes are predominantly reading and writing based, and all relate back to theater even though they are my academic classes. Tuesdays, I have voice, ballet, aural skills, small group music, and acting. Most of those classes are exactly what you'd expect them to be, except for small group music, which is when my cohort learns music and then we perform it in small groups, one person per musical part. I'm in an all girl cohort (yay girl power woohoo!) so I've been living in the tenor and bass part of my voice which is super fun to explore. It's a long nine hour day of classes but totally worth it for the amazing training. Plus I can promise you I never have trouble falling asleep. Thursdays are similar except vocal performance, which is where we get assigned songs and perform them, and music theory replaces aural skills and small group music. Friday is a more chill studio day with only three classes, speech, acting through movement, and contemporary dance.

I truly love all of my classes but acting still has my heart. I attended LaGuardia High School as a drama major, so acting is definitely where I thrive and feel most at home. In my regular acting class, we just finished working on monologues and now we are moving on to scenes. In my physical acting class, we do new exercises that focus on our physicality every week, that challenge us to think outside of the box. One class, I ended up crawling on the floor hissing as I pretended to be a cat..snake? I love to be pushed out of my comfort zone and try new things and this class always does that without fail.

During the first semester, I was really trying to learn the ropes and get settled. I was focused on my classes, making friends, and getting used to a new environment. Coming into semester two, my main goal was to get more involved in the NYU community and take on more opportunities. So, in addition to my classes, I also am a part of two clubs at NYU. I got involved in the school newspaper, Washington Square News, to pursue my love of writing in a new form. I usually gravitate towards playwriting and songwriting but I thought I would try journalism, and I truly have found a new passion for it. I also am a part of a club called Broken Glasses, where we read a new play each week and debate and discuss it afterwards. This helps me expand my theatrical knowledge and lets me geek out and connect with fellow theater lovers.

Overall, I'm really excited for semester two and all the new opportunities it's bringing. I'm going to continue to absorb as much information as I can and take advantage of living in the best city in the world. NYU has so much to offer and I want to make the most of my time here!