Student Blog: Incorporating Theatre as a Non-Theatre Major

College is very scary when it comes to figuring out what to do. There are so many factors that go into picking where to go, but the biggest question always is there, and sometimes never really answered, "what do I major in?" For me it came easy. I always loved writing so when I researched and looked into schools that had good writing programs. In the end, I went with Eugene Lang at The New School in New York City. The thing is that I never lost my love for theatre, but I just couldn't see myself spending all of my time, energy, and money doing it. I was scared that something that brought me so much joy and comfort would become something that I would begin to hate.

Here was my plan: Major in Literary Studies, Minor in French as well as Theatre. So far its going well, I am on track. Most importantly, for me, is that I am enjoying it. Here are the classes that I have taken and am going to be taken.

For their first semester, all first year students at my college must take a first year seminar as well as a type of class called "Writing the Essay". My seminar class was called something along the lines of "Watching and Making Performance". This is a class I hope to never forget. Shouts out to Professor Neil Greenberg for being one of the most entertaining people out there. Throughout the course we talked about what it means to consider something a performance and other aspects of such a thing.

Second semester I took an acting class. Given the fact that it has been a year since I acted I thought it would be a good class to take, especially since I personally have never been trained. The class was pretty easy and opened my eyes to a lot of different techniques. To mix things up a little bit, I took "Intro to Playwriting". I loved this class, although it is on the track of what I want to do for a living so I guess this is a little biased. Throughout this class we not only took a deep dive look into classic plays, but we wrote one act plays and got to workshop them.

For this upcoming semester I did go a little bit heavy on the "theatre" classes. First we have "Foundations of World Theatre". Next is "Monologue Workshop for Auditions", and then there is "Playwriting: Documentary Theatre". With these first couple of semesters, I really wanted to do a large assortment of courses just so that I can truly fine tune what it is I want to focus on. Most schools don't really allow you to declare a major until you have reached a certain number of credits, so take that time to explore.

Along with these theatery classes I've taken French each semester, three different kinds of writing classes, "Intro to Screen Studies", and a lecture called "Migration, Cities, and Climate" that talked about how climate change is forcing people to migrate. With in-person classes finally starting up again, I also am planning to audition for school productions because I miss it. The best thing about college is that it allows you to explore the world and yourself. Doing so leads to endless possabilities.

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