Some may disagree, but that’s my feeling on it.
I just wanted to state this for the record. I know that I’ve kind of hemmed and hawed about whether college is important. And obviously I sort of have a dream of working toward a degree.
And sure, sometimes, I wistfully blog about all my friends who went to normal colleges with their quads, and their groups, and their sports, and general college life. And it sounds sort of fun and sort of important.
I do like to be impressive, and having a college degree would probably make me sound more impressive. I do like to be educated. College could possibly help with that.
But just because I’m still working in reality TV (as opposed to scripted, or theater) after all these years, and just because I start to question my choices sometimes… it does not mean that I am trying to make people younger than I am question their choices!!!
That is the LAST thing I would ever want to do. And I’m SO sorry if it seems like in all this college talk that I am doing that to anyone.
The reason I know that at least someone must be thinking I’m doing that, is because I got an email from a high schooler’s dad. He said she (the high schooler) wanted to go into the entertainment industry. She didn’t think she needed college, but he was really worried for her to not have a college education. He asked if I had some advice that he could pass along, basically wanting me to “talk some sense into her.”
I can almost guarantee you he did not pass my email along, because basically I said as far as getting any further in the entertainment industry, college is useless. (She wants to be an actress. But my feeling on this stays the same whether you want to work in front of or behind the camera – just the list of “big name colleges” changes slightly depending what you want to do.)
I said if she can get into one of the big acting schools – Tisch (NYU), U Mich, Juilliard, Cincinnati Conservatory of Music (if she wants to do musical theater), maybe North Carolina School of the Arts, or some others; it’d probably be worthwhile to go and get your connections, build your resume, and all that.
(He’d already told me where she’d been accepted, and it was not a known school.)
I said my true advice was don’t waste a dime on college because the entertainment industry is basically about perseverance, luck, and who you know (and I suppose maybe talent a little…). A piece of paper (again, from not one of the main schools) isn’t going to be worth it for you.
Get waitressing experience, so it’s easier to get a job as a waitress out here. Build up a savings – whether that means living at home for a year after high school, or whatever you have to do. Try to build a presence for yourself online (’cause that matters nowadays). Throw yourself into your craft, whatever that is.
But if she is sure, 100% sure, that she wants to work in entertainment, she’s gotta chase that full throttle. You can go to college anytime, but you can only be young once – and youth is everything in Hollywood. Get while the getting’s good!
So, that’s where I still stand on that. Even as someone who isn’t always superbly happy with her job and gets rejected and fails a lot (A LOT), who sometimes has those thoughts creep in of “will I ever achieve the things I want?”… And as someone who has thoughts of “I could be a doctor! Or a lawyer! Or many other things”… I still think a big school or no school is the way to go in entertainment (which is why when I was going to college, I went to Berklee).
If you have the money and you want to continue education your whole life – and while you’re hustling, you want to take an online class or a class at UCLA – I wouldn’t at all discourage something like that… Learning’s cool.
But totally dedicating 4 years of your early life to the possibility that life might not be what you want it to be, that doesn’t seem cool.
If someday we entertainment folk decide to do something else, we’ll know what else life offered us. Whereas, if you go to college with the pure intention of getting a degree so you’re safe in case you need to use your back-up plan… then you’re not focusing enough on your main plan! If you’re planning for a back-up, it doesn’t sound like enough of a back-up, does it?