Student Blog: When Back-To-School Season Becomes Going-To-College Season

“Back-to-school season” is a pretty loaded phrase. It means something different to everyone: students, teachers, parents, and all others affected by this shift back to normalcy and routine. The sudden deluge of back-to-school advertisements strikes fear in some hearts, dread in many, relief in others, and, if you’re anything like elementary school me, pure giddiness at the prospect of curating a shopping cart full of school supplies. This season has always comforted me. But this year was different. Beginning my first year of college, I wasn’t returning to a familiar routine, going back to a familiar place, or reuniting with familiar people. I was diving headfirst into a brand-new environment, where the once-simple phrase “back-to-school season” seemed entirely inadequate to describe the monumental change ahead. This year, I celebrated “going-to-college season,” for which the school supply shopping brought 18-year-old me a different kind of giddiness altogether. 

Puppy folders were replaced with a MacBook. Glitter gel pens with black ink and yellow highlighters. Monogrammed backpack and lunchbox sets swapped for a leather handbag. Colorful sneakers for character shoes. Sticker-covered notebooks for my audition book. School uniforms for leotards and actors’ blacks. Snack bags for Grether’s tins. A classroom cubby for a car loaded with what felt like everything I owned (and then some). I was packing to be a freshman BFA music theatre student at Elon University–an absolute dream come true. I didn’t know exactly what back-to-school season would mean this particular fall semester. But I felt it would be extraordinary. And I was right.

I was also lucky. From the moment I stepped onto campus, I had my people. Sixteen of them, to be exact. My fellow Elon MT freshmen and I share the same classes, schedules, professors, and even dorm. Yes, the whole first-year MT class–along with many wonderful acting, dance, and drama & theatre studies majors–lives together in the Performing Arts Living-Learning Community. Doors are always open, food is always shared, clothes are always borrowed, and chats always extend into the early hours of the morning. On the performing arts floor, and in the greater department of performing arts, even unfamiliar faces are friendly. It’s almost unfair. While 99% of freshmen struggle to find their people and place in these first weeks and months of college, here we are, traveling in a pack and feeling immediately at home with each other. And at home within our studies.

In high school, theatre was the thing I did after school. It was my passion and purpose, yes. But unless you’re attending a performing arts high school, theatre tends to be relegated to extracurricular status. First, I completed my academic coursework and classes (which, for the record, I did very much enjoy). Then, the fun began: school rehearsals, voice lessons, dance classes, piano lessons, acting classes, choir rehearsal, auditions, coaching, drama leadership, and everything else that filled my cup (and my plate!)

In college, I’m incredibly privileged to formally study what I love and enthusiastically love what I’m studying. What was once considered a hobby is now a lifestyle. This welcome change has welcomed personal change as well. The student who used to stay up until 2 am cramming for an AP Calculus test after hours of evening rehearsal and lessons now absolutely needs her eight hours. I can’t be run down, tired, or, God forbid, sick. As a BFA student, simply “going through the motions” is not an option. Full presence, attention, and effort are essential to personal progress and daily participation. We’re not going to school to passively study–we’re going to actively do. I’ve fought the compulsion to say “yes” to absolutely everything, learned to schedule my sleep, and slowly fallen into a productive routine hoping to strike a healthy balance and avoid crossing the line from effort into exhaustion.

Balance is key–in your personal life and in your curriculum. Opting for a liberal arts university, I’m receiving a well-rounded academic education that extends beyond the performing arts. I’m double majoring in arts administration (some of my classmates are even double majoring in computer science!) I’m studying in Washington, D.C. this January and am planning to study abroad in London during my junior year. I’m completing a research project as an Elon College Fellow and serving my community as a Vocal Scholar. I’m learning about music theory, Applied Meisner, authentic jazz, and aural skills, but I’m also writing papers about global citizenship, reading political science literature, and learning about climate science. I’m studying films in one class and taking notes on PBS Frontline documentaries in the very next. I’m attending opera masterclasses and author lectures in the same evening. Every day looks a little different, and every day, I learn something different. No matter what I’m doing, I’m putting joy into it and getting joy out of it. 

While at Elon (and during a Meisner repetition acting exercise of all times), a classmate pointed out the fact that I had a dimple on my cheek when I smiled. “You have a dimple,” they noticed. “I have a dimple?” I questioned (repeating as per the guidelines of the exercise, of course). Later that day, I smiled in the mirror and saw that they were right. I like to think I got it from smiling so much since being at Elon. A scientist would tell me that this conclusion is impossible (or some such scientific term). But that scientist has never been a music theatre major at Elon University and could never know the joy and laughter that has come into my life in these last few months. So far, this semester has been full of change, yes, but also full of joy. This fall, back-to-school season wasn’t a return to the familiar. It was finding excitement, friendship, gratitude, balance, and curiosity in the unfamiliar: college!