Pursue Your Theatre Degree, Even If Your Family Disagrees

(Rollins College)

by Greg Ehrhardt, OnStage Blog Writing Staff

Achieving a 4-year theatre degree is never easy, and sometimes, the curriculum isn’t even the hardest part. The hardest part can be convincing your parent(s) to support you when tuition for one year is more expensive than a Lexus GX.

We’ve heard some of our readers’ stories about parents resisting their calling for a theatre or fine arts degree. Indeed, I can relate, and as a managing member of OnStage Blog, it’s time to share my story: a story I’ve only shared with a handful of people before.

From the time I was twelve years old, I was told by my mother I had to major in engineering (or a related STEM major) to have a fulfilling life. “Engineers are valuable, serious members of society” was a refrain I would hear ad nauseam at the dinner table, car rides, vacations, you get the idea. College was framed as a way to achieve a serious, significant, and stable measure of income, and according to my mother, nothing else mattered.

Any notion of majoring in a non-STEM degree was immediately scorned and rejected; the STEM path was emphasized as the only path to a dignified life.

(Keep in mind, this was 25 years ago before STEM was a thing.)

My sister wanted to be a graphic design major, despite the nightly parental Baghdad Bob routine. One night she decided to make it clear to our mother that she wanted to major in graphic design. My mother, who I would have described up to this point as having the patience of a saint, erupted. My sister’s announcement resulted in the first of countless arguments about my sister throwing her life away, living a life full of job instability, and lacking purpose.

Day after day, night after night, the same argument occurred on a loop. There was no listening, just preaching. Many times there was yelling, oftentimes there were tears. Most of the time I was a passive bystander, terrified by my mother’s newfound venom for certain life choices.

Occasionally I worked up the courage to take my sister’s side, but, I may as well have been talking to a wall. My mother was relentless, unchanging, and unwavering in her belief that pursuing a non-STEM major would be a waste of time and a dereliction of duty.

After a year and a half of seemingly daily arguments on choosing an engineering major vs a graphic design major, it came time to choose. My sister chose peace. She pursued an engineering major at the behest of my mother.  

I do not blame her. We all want to make our parents happy. Our parents know best, right?

My sister graduated and is a successful project manager in the engineering field today. But majoring in engineering is a decision she regrets to this day, more than 25 years later.  

I wanted to be a business major in college, but as a junior in high school, having seen clearly what the future held for me, I chose to be an actuarial science major just to avoid the endless arguments with my mother. I was weak, and frankly, I willingly took the path of least resistance.

Professionally, life has turned out ok, much like my sister's. I have had a good corporate career thus far.

The major I chose was a decision I regret to this day, not because I didn’t like Math (I did, and still do). It was a mistake because I didn’t make my own decision on my own terms. I was pressured, bullied even, to pursue someone else’s dreams, not my own.

If you are a high school student with plans on attending college, my hope is you will have the support of your parents no matter what major you choose. If you have those parents, count your blessings.

However, some of you deciding on a theatre degree may be encountering resistance from one or both of your parents.

If you have met such resistance on a theatre/fine arts degree, you will, or have already run into the following arguments:

“You know how hard it is to succeed with a theatre degree?”

“Tuition is way too expensive to pursue theatre!”

“You can’t do anything with a fine arts degree.”

“You will be working in a restaurant for the rest of your life.”

“We’re paying for your tuition, so you have to do as we say.”

There are more arguments of course; I have heard them all. I am here to tell you, ignore it all. Every single argument is rubbish.

I can cite dozens of examples of fine arts majors thriving in business or cite OnStage Blog’s own Irene Martinko in listing all the skills you get from a theatre major that can apply to every single profession. But let’s look at the bigger picture instead.

College is more expensive than ever, I 100% agree. It would be nice to get a return on that investment quickly. Student debt is terrible. But the world is much bigger than dollars, bonuses, and ROI metrics. After all, there are no museums dedicated to reviewing reams of papers of the finest mathematical models ever developed.

(Oh, there are math museums of course, but based on the pictures, who do you think made the museum happen, math majors or fine arts majors?

This is not to denigrate the STEM career path. The world benefits from STEM majors; they make our lives easier, longer, more automated, and more leisurely.

But what good is leisure if there are no arts?

Do we pay hundreds of dollars on tickets to see analysts code for two hours?

Do we sit on our couches, pop on Netflix, and watch a show about engineers going over blueprints?

The world needs theatre and the arts, and the world needs the skills that come from it.

Take the Statue of Liberty: sure, it is an engineering marvel, but if it looked like a blob, would anybody care?

Most importantly, fundamentally as homo sapiens, we watch, listen to, and perform stories. Storytelling gives our society a soul, character, and imagination. Without those three elements, we truly are just robots.

Stories are how our culture is handed down from generation to generation. Our culture does not survive based on lines of code alone. Our culture survives by stories that endure, and fine arts majors are the pioneers in creating stories.

Ultimately though, this is not just about fine arts majors. This applies to any major: the key to succeeding in life is making your own decisions, and following your passion. If you are passionate about being a STEM major, you should pursue it!

(It is funny, you never hear of students running into resistance from their elders on being a computer science major; competing with robots, big tech, and automation for the rest of your life is perfectly fine, but the second you want to contribute to the arts, the one part of society that endures from generation to generation, you get grief. I know life is crazy)

The world thrives when people follow their passion, in any field. Passion begets creativity, and creativity begets innovation. Innovation is how we inspire the world to be the best we can be.

If you are in a standoff regarding your choice of major with your parents: emphasize your passion. That doesn’t mean you tell them that you have a passion for your major of choice. It means you tell them passionately you will make your major work. If money is the lone obstacle, it may mean you choose a cheaper school or forgo school altogether. (Some of our finest minds in the STEM field have forgone college, so theatre students can too.)

If you are still on the fence, as a student or a parent, consider this: remember how I chose to be an actuarial science major to avoid a year-long confrontation with my mother? Well, it turns out that a parent who has extreme tunnel vision over a kid’s college major will also have extreme tunnel vision on other subjects.

To paraphrase a certain movie about science and technology gone wrong, I did not cancel confrontation; confrontation was inevitable.

My mother has not spoken to me, or the rest of her children, in over 10 years. Yes, it is an extreme outcome, and there is more to the story than the space permits. The point is, my sister and I made the choices we did to precisely avoid this from happening, and it happened anyway.

I think about my college years, which could have been spent learning about the subject I loved since I was 8 years old. I could have gone to my college classes excited about it instead of dreading it. I could have looked back on my college years with wistfulness instead of sadness. I think about my choice to make another person’s dream come true instead of my own every single day.

Every. Single. Day.

If theatre is your singular love, go get it. Hopefully, your parents support it. If they do not, as long as you know the path in front of you, you should be unafraid to take the path that calls out to you, and you alone.

After all, the only person really living with your life’s decisions…Is you.

PS: Chris Peterson and I spoke about this topic in the latest episode of Theatre Advice.