Good.
The world needs artists but unfortunately most people won't respect you unless you end up on their favorite tv show. Even though people like Georgia higher education Chancellor Hank Huckaby think majoring in drama is asinine, you still want to do it because it is your passion.
Great.
Maybe you shouldn't though.
It's almost treacherous for someone in the theatre community to criticize studying theatre. If you majored in theatre or drama (like I have) you have several friends on your Facebook who post "arts education" statuses and articles all the time. I have posted some articles as well, as I feel the arts in secondary education are instrumental in the development of a person's self-awareness and self-esteem.
I'm not bashing theatre or the arts. But this major and this profession will grind you if you aren't prepared.
What inspires this post is a piece I read by Maureen Downey, whose "Get Schooled" blog is the best written work of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She recently presented two sides of "the to be a drama major or not" by posting a retort to Hank Huckaby's assertion that drama majors don't get jobs written by a drama major with a job. I will link the blog post retort, written by UGA alumnus Emily Paige Ballouwho: http://www.ajc.com/weblogs/get-schooled/2013/jun/01/chancellor-students-choosing-wrong-areas-study-inc/.
I won't restate much of what she said (the post is brief and worthy to be read in her words), but I concur with most of her statements. In fact, a part of this post will piggyback on the post but with the perspective of someone struggling with being a drama major after graduation...and not wanting to do drama. This is imperative for me because I'm somewhere in the middle of Paige and Huckaby; I believe in realistic expectations but also in passion.
There will be so much put on kids these days that will seem scatterbrained and confusing. That's because it is. Adults above age 30 have no idea what college is like now and they want to impart that college is what you absolutely need if you don't want to flip burgers. Adults my age understand that even with college...you may end up flipping burgers...even with a petroleum engineering degree.
This isn't about college in general though, this is about majoring in drama.
If you want to major in drama and you have other interests that are not exclusively drama...don't major in drama.
This is a paraphrase of a quote my theatre management professor stated, which he was very much against. He was against the idea that you shouldn't major in drama if you also have other interests. I disagree with him. That quote, that "if you have anything else you're interested in besides theatre, do that" isn't designed to say "don't major in theatre period." It's designed to turn away people that aren't in it for the long haul.
See, majoring in theatre in general requires a substantial amount of life given to working into the art. In some cases it can be soul crushing and it can parallel "Hell Screen" by Ryunosuke Akutugawa. Akutugawa's short story is about an artist so consumed in what he is doing that he risks the lives of others in order to get what he wants (I know too many directors like this).
When I majored in theatre it wasn't uncommon for us to work until 11:30PM or longer to rehearse...after going to classes (which usually started at 8:00 or 8:30AM). On the weekends you might be lucky if you're a tech theatre major and don't have to memorize lines: you can do your homework. If you're an actor, you may end up getting some B's and C's in core curriculum. If you're serious you also have to continue reading scripts to find monologues, practice monologues and develop a portfolio, and also memorize lines for a show you're currently in. If you were an actor and not in a show you needed to find something to do that helps you improve. If you were in tech week you were working all night or all day. This is for a normal university/college theatre program; if you're at a conservatory...oh you're in some deep shit.
So if you don't want to do anything besides theatre...do you want to put up with that? Do you not want a relationship and dating time? Do you want to only see your friends on occasion?
For some (most) of us, that's a no. And in the real world that is only a beginning; I was given a tech rehearsal schedule for a show that was 16 hours for 13 days straight. That's some shit.
Do you really like "Glee?" They work typically 16 hour days during shooting (http://www.hypable.com/2012/02/17/breaking-no-concert-tour-for-glee-this-summer-but-theres-a-twist/); in fact they were so overworked they wrote a letter to their creator about it: http://perezhilton.com/2010-05-10-ryan-murphy-gets-an-angry-letter-from-glee-cast.
Entertainment in general has a hierarchy that is tough to penetrate. To get in requires years and it requires patience, flexibility, determination--often at the expense of a social life.
The problem with drama majors isn't that their skills aren't valuable; in fact their skills are highly under appreciated, given that a tech theatre major has to practically build a house, weld, wire, so forth. The problem is that many enter the major and one of two things happen. One, they see quickly that they have other interests and decide to major in something that will get them a slightly higher paying job. Two, they graduate with a degree and realize they want a life. They may have had a boyfriend or girlfriend and now they marry and they have to make compromises. They realize they want to take a break and see what else is out there.
That's what has happened to many of my friends. Many of my friends did continue on the theatre path and have received wonderful opportunities working in Atlanta, Chicago, and/or New York. Others, however, realize they need a life outside of theatre. Unfortunately, the idea of a "life" life and a theatre life aren't always compatible. I knew a married couple who both worked in theatre...and didn't live in the same state for the first 6 years of their marriage. For me, my desire to travel led me out; I touched on this in my South America post. It was also a desire to have a girlfriend and date; I had went to a women's college and I didn't have any substantial girlfriends...which is sad. Plus I realized what I really wanted to be serious on was writing and I went back to this passion.
If you want to major in theatre you need to understand this hard reality. Theatre is a cold place but it does get better. The difference between theatre and engineering is that being hardcore about engineering can get you a $50K+ job right out of undergraduate whereas theatre requires so much entry level crap. It requires a flexible schedule which is hard when you make very little and you will probably have to live in an urban area. That's why people end up waiting tables. It isn't because their drama degree was worthless; if you used your time to refine your talent and get gigs or jobs, it's not worthless. You just have to maintain a flexible income while trying to break in.
What makes drama look bad is this hierarchy and the people who drop from their majors. What isn't talked about very often is that this applies to many disciplines--including ones that require a bit more training. Yeah, the state of Georgia probably needs more skilled road workers and so forth but those working class jobs come with a physical toil that weaken your skills as you reach mid-career to late-career which will make you less valuable around 45 to 50 (and you still 16 years left for full retirement at age 50). Business is often a grind too, entry level, and many have dropped from business to teach math and so forth because they didn't want "Mad Men" hours. I mean really there are several people from skilled majors doing what drama majors are doing (waiting tables or doing odd-end jobs) because like any young person who thinks they have doubts. Not everyone gets it right the first time and hindsight is better than foresight. It would be better to be a drama major with no debt choosing to move into a different field than a medical school dropout with $200,000 in undergrad and med school debt. People might disagree because at least that science degree as job opportunities but there might be someone who wants to get completely out of science or into something like teaching, which would require more schooling and more loans to complete.
Paige talked about this and I agree with her. There seems to be this hindsight bias against people who didn't major in STEM degrees or trades but the reality is that if everyone did major in those jobs would be tough to find as well--in fact they actually are in some circumstances as described in these two links: http://lifeinc.today.com/_news/2012/10/22/14542224-how-employers-make-it-hard-to-find-good-workers?lite and http://progressive.org/skills-gap-myth . Society requires a diversity of jobs and unfortunately that also means that there's often a diversity of failure. It's easy to pick on drama, but there are several people with Business Administration degrees who tried to start their own business and after taking out a loan they wind up bankrupt.
I do think if you want to major in drama you need to be steadfast in only wanting to do that profession; if you have any doubt then I'd highly suggest minoring in the drama field and majoring in something that can get you a day job. Peter Falk had a Master's in Public Administration for instance. Hell, use dual enrollment to get a vocational certification to get a job while you're in college or waiting on gigs. Nick Offerman worked (and works) as a woodworker and carpenter while trying to get acting gigs. There's actually quite a few people who do that.
What you shouldn't do is let Yahoo! tell you what to major in with their "5 Degrees That Make No Money," cosponsored by a for-profit degree mill online university. And you shouldn't let baby-boomers put you down with their "I'm better than you" attitude because they had it better than we did. You need to be able to understand that you will have a hard time regardless of what you go into, but having a passion for it matters. Chances are you may leave that major--it's tough, but that's life. Some of us learn better by doing and trying and sometimes what we do and try doesn't work so we have to do and try something else. Every generation has young people like that. Things will work out if you work hard and remain self-aware, but don't let Hank Huckaby tell you what to do.
