Memoir of a Former Bad Student

For anyone reading this who may be getting ready for college: do extensive research before you make any final decisions. Research the school, the town it’s in, any financial information you’ll need, and above all research the program you’re hoping to enter. You don’t want to get stuck studying something you don’t enjoy simply because the name sounded promising. What do I mean by that?

I chose a directing major in college, thinking that I would be directing films and learning how to develop stories.

I then spent two years trying to convince myself that I could learn to love working in live theater.

Let’s rewind a bit; back to 2015. I was struggling through my last year of high school in Massachusetts; doing just above the bare minimum in every class, exchanging tight smiles with people who no longer had any interest in pretending to be my friends, and sending as many college applications out as I could. I didn’t care if my classmates liked me, I didn’t care which state I would end up in. I just wanted to be done with that time in my life. I wanted to start over.

I needed to start over.

The only great love in my life at that time was creative writing. I knew how to tell a good story. I knew how to make audiences care about my characters. I was fortunate enough to spend two weeks during the Summer of my junior year at Yale University in Connecticut; where I was taught the basics of filmmaking, such as equipment setup and editing. I was also still dedicated to my high school theater department. I had bit parts in almost every production, and I kept my grades up and my nose clean enough to qualify for yearly bus trips to New York City (and one BIG trip to Disney World.) Any outlet I could find, I grabbed it. I even tried drawing and pottery; believing that somehow I could channel my laundry list of characters and imaginary worlds into those pursuits.

Spoiler alert: I had decent skills with pottery, but it did nothing to scratch my creative itch.

College time rolled around! Graduation was swiftly approaching, my teachers and guidance councilor had stopped talking to me (I guess the two acceptance letters I got were enough to calm their fears), and I had to make a decision. One avenue would take me to a journalism degree, a generous scholarship, and a college whose campus looked like a standard high school. The other would take me to New York City, with no scholarship and a directing degree which was very hard to get accepted into.

I chose Avenue Number Two, packed my bags, and moved to The Big Apple. I’ve called it home ever since.

Let’s jump forward in time, past orientations, open houses, and a touring event where I met the woman who would become my first love. Hard cut to me at the required meeting for all directing majors.

First of all, there were only eleven of us. This wasn’t a small school, so the diminutive number spoke to the major’s exclusivity. We were all sat in a black box-style theater, in a circle of plastic chairs. A few lucky ducks had already made friends with each other, and they chatted about this Broadway show and that Off-Broadway show. They compared audition processes, interviews, and essays.

Nobody was talking about films, though. Nobody was gushing about the stories they’d written, or their pantheons of characters.

This was my first clue that I was out of place.

There were plenty of more clues to follow. During my class selection, my advisor wouldn’t allow me to take a course on theatrical makeup. Instead, I was put into acting classes every semester, along with script analysis classes and stagecraft. Even when I finished all my gen-eds (oh yeah, youngsters, you’ll have to take math and science no matter what your major is, so be prepared), I wasn’t permitted to study anything outside of the topics most relevant to live theater. On top of that, when I told people I was a directing major, the follow-up question was always “which one?”

Which one?

There was…more than one?

I wanted to be a director. Why were people confused?

The longer I stayed in the directing major, the more miserable I became. Everyone around me was so happy! They all seemed tapped into this energy I just wasn’t feeling! They thought nothing of sitting quietly in a theater for hours, watching the same scene be rehearsed over and over. They didn’t mind that their creative input was limited to lighting arrangements and blocking. Meanwhile, I was dying inside. I wanted to create! I didn’t want to sit quietly! When it was time for us to direct, we were given a very short list of plays to pick from and told that we would only be directing one scene from our chosen play. No directing original material.

No. Directing. Original. Material.

My high school attitude exploded out of the cage I’d locked it in. Time to do the bare minimum.

Just enough assignments done to spare me from an F. Just enough effort put in to keep the professors off my back. My creative itch was becoming creative hives. Skating by stopped being possible toward the end of my sophomore year. My teachers were starting to notice how much I was slacking. They could feel my boredom emanating outward; waves of “who cares” billowing out of a mind which wanted SO BADLY to be enjoying itself. I didn’t want to be disrespectful, nor did I want to waste anyone’s time! I could see why my classmates loved working in theater! I even enjoyed it, sometimes! Stagecraft One was a blast!

I just couldn’t get around how much I wanted to do more.

Finally, finally, someone noticed enough to intercede. One day, a week after I’d cut class because I hadn’t finished a major project, my directing teacher pulled me aside. Years of being yanked out to the hallway for a “chat” had conditioned me to believe that I was in for a reckoning. I was going to get screamed at, just like I had been in high school and grammar school.

“You’re not happy, are you?”

She didn’t yell. She didn’t scream. She didn’t judge. All she did was ask me: “you’re not happy, are you?”

No, I wasn’t. And it wasn’t the fault of the school, or the teachers, or the programs.

We had a serious talk. I was failing, I knew, and I was running out of time to save myself from a humiliating trip back home. I needed to do something drastic, something my pride hadn’t been allowing me to do. This professor pushed me to do it.

I had to change my major.

Well…okay, first, I had to sit for an extra class with her, fake my way through my final project, and set myself up with a new advisor, then I had to change my major.

And I did.

The change was like magic. I entered into the Cinema, Television, and Emerging Media program, and everything fell into place. Here, on the upper floor of the building, I found my calling. The workload was almost triple what it had been in directing. I was writing research papers, articles, analyses, I even had to write a feature-length script.

I loved every minute of it. I started to get good at it. For the first time, I busted my butt to get good grades. I wanted good grades. These new professors talked like me, thought like me, challenged me, and pushed me to scratch my creative itch. They wanted to hear about my characters and my worlds. In fact, they wanted to hear so much that I had to make those characters better. I had to make my writing more complex, more technical. It was like every teacher was saying “you want to make a career out of this? Prove yourself. Prove that you’re not a one-trick pony. Write this script for an original television pilot, then write this twenty-page research paper on communication theory.”

I was on the Dean’s List by the first semester of my senior year. I stayed on it until I graduated in 2019.

I didn’t change my habits, I didn’t suddenly get smarter. All that happened was I took a leap of faith and found my passion. Was it a hard decision? Yes! How do you tell your parents that you’re giving up a spot in a major only ten other people got into? Was it a bummer that I had to take extra classes to stay on track for graduation? In theory, yes. Nobody wants to give up Winter and Summer breaks for more school. I knew it had to be done. When you find something you care about, when you finally have the motivation to succeed, you power through the work. You don’t let it stop you.

Trust me on two points: you won’t regret changing your major, and the work will pay off. If you don’t have to switch, that’s amazing! Some people are fortunate enough to find themselves getting on the right track right from the jump. My best friend and my first love graduated in the same majors they initially applied for, and they’re both very happy to this day. If you have to switch, do it. Don’t feel like you’re trapped just because your first major was hard to get into. You already succeeded in that front. You got in. You get to be happy, now. If the course load looks intimidating, or you’ll have to stay an extra year, do not take those as signs to give up.

Believe me. I was one F away from getting expelled. Last year, I completed work on my first film. This month, I finished the script for its sequel.

You’re not a failure. You’re just at a crossroads.