Student Blog: Starting School at the University of Georgia

This semester I began classes as a theatre major at the University of Georgia. For my gen ed requirements, I am enrolled in Anthropology, a weekly seminar at the law school, and a weekly seminar that is an introduction to the honors college, but I have been very fortunate to be able to jump into many classes for my major as well.

My Acting 1 class might be my favorite class I am enrolled in this semester. The class is a group of 16 theatre majors that meets three times a week, and the class has quickly become a wonderful community. It has been so nice as a first year to have a class where I can talk to anyone in the room and where we all support one another as we work with more challenging and vulnerable scene work than we did in high school. The majority of the class (including myself) is also in a twice-weekly class called Theatre as a Discipline and Profession, in which we listen to guest speakers, including faculty members introducing us to the department and alumni who give us advice for education and working in the industry.

I am also enrolled in Basic Dramatic Writing, which I was very excited to take. I have been writing plays since I was in middle school, but this has been far more formal training than I have ever received in the past. Being required to write plays for a grade has been very helpful in teaching me how to push through writer's block and self-doubt, and turns out I can write a play (that I like!) after getting home from tech rehearsal at 11:30 pm if I just focus on getting it done instead of stressing about making it perfect. For the second half of the semester, we are shifting to writing screenplays, which is going to have me developing a muscle I have never used before, something I am both excited and nervous to do.

My final class is Voices of Diversity in American Theatre, a class which analyzes how representation of marginalized groups in American theatre has changed over time, with units on female, queer, and POC representation. I love this class because it introduces us to such a broad range of pieces throughout time and encourages thoughtful dialogue among a class of students (most of whom are not theatre majors and some of whom had never seen a play before) with a diversity of perspectives. For my midterm in this class, I had so much fun giving a presentation analyzing female representation in Diana the Musical, and walking out of that room, I thought "wow, I am in the right major."

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