In the month of December I was part of a staged reading of a student written musical, Mary Shelley, through the Sandbox Student Series at the University of Colorado Boulder. The musical was written by a CU student and follows the life of Mary Shelley, mother of science fiction and author of Frankenstein.

Burnout hit me hard at the end of this semester. Having to go back to school for two weeks after Thanksgiving and before winter break felt impossible. I had just been at home doing nothing for a week and now I was expected to jump right back into final projects and studying for final exams, but I really wanted to end my semester strong.

Ah, 2022, what could I possibly say about you? You introduced me to photography, something I had previously enjoyed but developed a deeper appreciation for just because I learned the craft.

Winter Break... what isn't there to love? For starters, it's the month of December which is filled with many exciting events that I look forward to throughout the year. The first one is my birthday which starts at the top of the month and then leads into the best and longest break my university offers us.

Burnout. A word that I believe every person on this whole planet has experienced at least once in their lifetime. It is not fun, it can make you irritable, and creeps up on you at the most important and busiest times of your life

If you are a workaholic like myself, you understand that taking breaks is super important to your overall well-being. Life is not solely about working and worrying about fulfilling deadlines, therefore maintaining a healthy balance of personal life and work life is key to living a life with beautiful memorable moments.

These past few weeks have been very hectic with little room for breaks. After a long string of chaos, I remained motivated telling myself that a break would come shortly. You can imagine my horror when I looked at my calendar and saw that finals week was set to start and due to some impeccable timing, so was my burnout.

First semester of junior year at MBU was probably the most notable of any semester so far of college. For one, my best friend, the one on the right in the picture, started working at the university and will be starting school there in a couple weeks.

For me, burnout started to set in right after Thanksgiving break. Like most students, I took those few days to relax, spend time with family, and not think about schoolwork. I dreaded the turnaround time from Thanksgiving break to the long haul grind to finals week. I wore down quickly. Desperately, I needed something to boost my spirits and motivate me to get through finals week.

This year I participated in an end-of-the-year final concert for my vocal teacher. The performance took place at the HardRock cafe in Pittsburgh where I sang a few musical theater pieces. Live performance returns once again and so do the on-stage jitters.

I'm the type of person that always needs something to do. Whether it's with school, performing, writing, assistant teaching, or really any activity I can get my hands on, I know I'll always make myself busy. However, this leads to something that I as a teenager know very well: burnout. For me, burnout feels like a weight pushing down on my head, making me so unimaginably mentally tired that my eyelids can't help but flutter closed. It's a feeling I dread, because I know it means I have to take a moment away from my activities to breathe and pull myself together.

Burnout is not fun. But finding ways to combat it is an important step in working on what you love again, or finding a new thing that you are passionate about.

Not only is going abroad an absolute blast, but it also teaches you a lot of valuable life lessons. It teaches you independence, problem solving skills, cultural competency, time management, and how to live in the moment.

In sociology, the third place is an environment in which we find comfort and familiarity that is separate from home (our first place) or work (our second place). Sociologist Ray Oldenburg defines the third place as “an anchor of community life that facilitates and fosters broader and more creative interaction.” Upon hearing that definition, it’s easy for us theatre artists to think of the theatre, despite the fact that it likely is our second place as well. But let’s step back for a second and look at this from an audience member’s perspective.

When we think of college we often associate it with long, excessive papers, horrific midterms/finals, long nights, and tons of Starbucks/Dunkin Donut trips to help us get through it all. However, if you were to ask me how I can manage my school, theatre, and work responsibilities I would tell you “scheduling!”

Who Doesn’t love a timeless Christmas musical? Here are 5 musicals that are fun, heartwarming, funny, and full of Christmas cheer to enjoy this holiday season!

In addition to our Department of Theatre & Dance productions each quarter, a big aspect of the UC San Diego theatre scene is Muir Musical. Since 1991, this completely student-run musical theatre organization has been dedicated to providing all UCSD undergraduates with the opportunity to participate in a fully produced, large-scale musical during Spring Quarter of each year. From Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2013) to Hair (2005) to American Idiot (2022), this theatre company has been a consistent place where students can create, experiment and of course, have fun. 

As the Fall semester draws to a close, it is common for us, as college students, to feel overwhelmed when classes conclude and final papers and exams arise. For some of you, the semester has already ended, but you may want to learn how to limit your stress for next semester. College life has the potential to be stressful in a variety of ways from academic to social to personal to financial. While there are many aspects out of our control, my tips will mainly focus on how to handle academic stress. No matter which category you may fall into, some tips and habits I have found helpful and continue to remind myself to follow are listed below.

This fall I was cast in my first college production, a play titled The Oregon Trail by Bekah Brunstetter. This was a highly educational and beneficial show process for me and a great start to my college theatre career. As this was the first play I had been a part of since my senior year of high school, I noticed many differences between the rehearsal processes in high school vs. college. 

I am still in denial that I am about to finish and graduate college. Granted, I am getting my master’s so I’m not fully done. As finals week approaches, I am getting my schedule ready so I can be as prepared as possible. Let me know what some of your tips for exam week are!

While I have managed to push through and conquer the start of my Sophomore year, I have faced many challenges regarding my workload and responsibilities along the way. Each semester I always find it difficult to create a routine that perfectly balances my school work, job, and social life and just when I think I’ve fallen into the perfect rhythm, something interferes that completely throws it off track.

As students, sometimes we feel like we have lots of things to do and writing them on our phones it’s not always the best option. So this time I’ll share with you why I still love agendas.

This semester I was lucky enough to be Wardrobe Supervisor for the University of Colorado Boulder Department of Theatre and Dance production of The Importance of Being Earnest which played November 11-20, 2022 in the Old Main Chapel, a cute little theatre space in the oldest building on campus.

As the end of the semester draws near, I am tired. It is so hard to jump back into school work for the two weeks in between Thanksgiving and Winter Break. As we are all trying to get back in the swing of things, here are some things I do to help stay focused for these last couple weeks of the semester.

“You are enough. You are so enough. It is unbelievable how enough you are.”- Sierra Boggess