Community Food Bank
Bring cans of food to your local store to support our Community Food Bank today. Get $10 off your next gas bill with every donation.
Participating stores:
- Safeway on Bell Road
- Albertson on Grand
- City Grocers on Tierra Del Sol
Author Archives: kkearneypelsey1
Major Project 4: Research Paper. Do Actors need a college degree
Keith Kearney-Pelsey
Professor Rebecca Weaver
Engl 1102
April 18, 2022
Actors: Degree or No Degree
For those of young students who want to be actors or actresses know that acting doesn’t always come from talent but from skill. There’s more than what people might think. And that is getting a little bit educated on the art of Theatre or Film. Some actors strive to get a degree in those categories in order to get far in their career, but there is one major question that is often asked is whether or not actors really need to have a degree in their craft. The answer often varies when it comes to the actor or actress who want to have a degree. For most people, they will say that acting just comes from experience without needing an education but others take their time to go to college to increase their knowledge in their career. It matters to everyone who wants to become successful after their years in education. Actors are free to have the choice to go to college and make an Associate’s or Bachelor’s degree in their craft.
The college degree that everyone, including actors, strives for is a Bachelor’s degree or an Associates degree. In an anominously written article on the Best Accredited Colleges website, “Acting Career Information: Becoming an Actor or Actress”, they addressed the educational requirement for being an actor. The author of the article states that, “There are no formal education requirements to become an actor but a bachelor’s degree in theater arts, drama, acting and performing, may be helpful in learning technical skills.” Granted, they only talk about everything that an actor does and needs, the author actually talks about the different skill sets to be an actor. Those skills are memorization, creativity, and literacy. Those skills are often there as a reminder for how young actors should treat their education. Since there is no formal educational requirement, they offer classes in the college field as a bit of extracurricular for other actors. These classes show the students how to be technical in their craft and help them gain full experience. Even if those extra-curricular activities help with experience, it doesn’t truly help with getting a degree in that particular field. The general conclusion of this article lies under the fact that the necessary skill sets and extra-curricular programs in college will help students become actors. Therefore is one of the reasons that actors don’t need a degree to make it far into their careers.
Without having a degree in acting, students who are soon to become actors will find better experience when they are doing real jobs onstage or onset. This is fully explained in the article, “Actor” written by Kathyrn Quinlan. Kathryn Quinlan is a writer who writes on different career pathways that give out training tips in those particular careers. In Chapter 3: Training to Be an Actor, Quinlan states that, “Most actors train on the job, taking lots of small jobs at first, as extras in shows and helpers building sets and props.” (Quinlan) For actors who are being extras are usually given minor parts with little dialogue. Luckily they get paid for their work and gain tons of experience doing so. Another thing that was mentioned in Chapter 3 was that actors could join unions. Quinlan added, “A union is a group that seeks fair treatment and better pay for workers. Sometimes actors must belong to unions before they can work.” (Quinlan) Say as if an actor wanted to be a lead role in a play or a movie, they would have to be part of a union such as SAG-AFTRA or Actors Unity Association. There are actually different kinds of unions that helps different types of actors ranging from being an extra to being a stunt double. Many beginning actors can gain true experience when they do real work real set or stage. They can even do without having a Bachelors or Associates degree in their craft.
It could be a few actors who actually do decide to get a college degree and use it for their career. They would use that degree for getting a job in theatre, acquire a lot of money in that field or even better they get to experience new things with the degree. This particular idea is a lot more explained in the article, “Dollars and sense’’: Professors and Other Experts Share Advice on Financing Your Theatre Degree.” written by Amy Cuomo. Amy Cuomo is a theatre professor of University of West Georgia who made this article with other theatre professors on their opinions and advice on theatre students who want to have a college degree. “For theatre practitioners, higher education training provides an opportunity to learn new skills and hone your craft, as well as to make discoveries about yourself and your abilities.” (Cuomo 11) As she said, when most actors gain their degree, particularly in Theatre, the world is always open for multiple opportunities for everyone. With financial aid, FAFSA aid could definitely help with scholarships for college and it could really benefit college professors for their jobs. Granted, colleges will charge students for classes and living expenses, but luckily FAFSA will take care of all of it. It all adds up to how students manage grades and what they got on their test scores. With acquiring money and experience, that all goes into how the student chooses whether or not to use their degree. Experience and money is very important to a degree but the way a degree is financed should be very crucial.
As it would be seem from all of the evidence that whether or not actors should get college degrees to help further careers lies on the hands of the actors themselves. Even if there is no formal education requirement when actors need a degree for their craft, it would still be good for them to go for it. Every actor should be able to find their way into their career with or without a college degree. They could learn by experience, programs, or even by getting real jobs in the field. Others who want to get a college degree will be able to study more and learn new things along the way that they never knew even existed. It’s almost similar to the old saying of “College isn’t for everyone.” Where in this case, actors who would want to go to college to find more opportunities will be great for them, while other actors who aren’t really looking forward to college can still find those opportunities by another source. Degree or no degree, Actors will be able take the stage in their own way and set up new journey for themselves.
Works Cited
“Acting Career Information: Becoming an Actor or Actress.” Bestaccreditedcolleges.org, https://bestaccreditedcolleges.org/articles/acting-career-information-becoming-an-actor-or-actress.html.
Cuomo, Amy. “DOLLARS AND SENSE: Professors and Other Experts Share Advice on Financing Your Theatre Degree.” Southern Theatre, vol. 62, no. 1, Winter 2021, pp. 24–36. EBSCOhost, https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,shib&db=ibh&AN=148423046&site=eds-live&scope=site.
Quinlan, Kathyrn. “Chapter 3: Training to Be an Actor.” Actor, Jan. 1998, p. 22. EBSCOhost, https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,shib&db=ndh&AN=8906123&site=eds-live&scope=site.
Bowdoin College (SAR) Paper.
Summary
The college of Bowdoin was founded on June 24, 1794 in Brunswick, Maine by James Bowdoin III. The most notable alumni of that college were the fourteenth president Franklin Pierce, television actor Gary Merrill, and Olympic gold medalist Joan Benoit Samuelson. The college of Bowdoin looks for and encourages students to foster joy in learning and take intellectual risks in education. It desires students to join the college so that they can graduate with the ability to engage in views in a critical manner. They hold that they appreciate the liberal arts and encourages everyone to foster its joy. Bowdoin wants the students to graduate with a mind of judgment and views of a critical manner.
Analysis
The two strategies that the website includes is Structure and Imagining Ideal Readers. Structure is how the piece of writing is formed in such a manner. In this case, the website is formed as a informational article that is split up into sections explaining their five domains of education. Their five domain include intellectual and academic, social and residential, athletic, esthic and environmental, and ethical. What the website did was that they would take each domain and give about examples of what the meaning is behind it. For example, when the website was discussing intellectual and academic, they explain the essential skills that goes along with it. They said, “the College enable students to master essential quantitative and writing skills and skills of oral communication, with the guidance of faculty, other professionals, and qualified student peers” (The Mission of the College, 2022).
There are plenty of information that is structured in that type of manner and they go into thorough detail of why these skill sets are important. What they also do with Structure is that they have divided each topic into their own separate page. There are different pages that explain the Offer of the College, The Mission of the College, and Bowdoin and the Environment. The reason for this is that it works as a guide to students who want to understand what they are enrolling into. That is how the website uses one of the parts of the strategy of Structure into their website. There is another part of the website that uses structure in another way.
What they also use in their Structure strategy, is that they use quotes from a variety of educators who have been in the Bowdoin area. The quotes are by educators of Bowdoin such as William Dewitt Hyde and Joseph McKeen. These quotes are often used as support to their topics. One of the quotes that was said “To lose yourself in generous enthusiasms and cooperate with others for common ends . . . ; this is the offer of the College” (President William DeWitt Hyde, 1903). This quote puts a strong emphasis on what the college can offer to anyone who is trying to enroll. The structure of the quotes are often used in a sentence as it continues to follow the point of the topic. Some of the quotes have a meaning behind them such as the quote, “count Nature a familiar acquaintance,” (The Mission of the College, 2022). The meaning to that quote is that when you are student or educator at Bowdoin college, you have the need to preserve the ecosystem. That is how the website adds everything to the Structure strategy into their writing.
The second strategy that the website uses is Imagining Ideal Readers. Imagining Ideal Readers is strategy that utilizes in the readers who are reading an article and gives the right context to said readers. In this case, the ideal readers are the people who are interested into joining Bowdoin college and the article is giving out the information that is just right for them. An example of this is the wording of their statements to make sure the readers know what is expected. What they do is that they would put in information about the college and they would word it as a essay while it’s still formatted as an article. That way the writing can be easy to interpret. Another example of Imagining Ideal Readers is how the writing can be based on a person. This person could be an alumni who graduated or an educator who has been there for quite some years. For example, they often talk about the educators, mainly President Willam DeWittt Hyde, into the writing almost as if he was telling everyone how to adapt to the college life at Bowdoin. It really brings everyone captivated when reading the website. That is how the website implements the second strategy of Imagining Ideal Readers.
Response
I would say that I’m not much of a fit to be at the Bowdoin College. The reason that I would say this is that it’s a little too far away from my home and I don’t think I could meet up with all those expectations for the students. The expectation are showing that students should really be part of the liberal arts and I’m not a particular fan of those kinds of arts. Granted, it includes theatre arts, but it goes a little too far past that point. It goes to the point of doing everything for the college such as protect its ecosystem and have a special gifts of social and geographical skills. It’s a little too much ask if you tell me. Another reason why I don’t think I’m fit to be at Bowdoin College is that it is way too far for me. I’m better off being next to my home and family rather than be off to Maine. Bowdoin College may be a nice and pleasant college, but I would rather stick with my state and current college that I am attending. The last thing that I have to say about Bowdoin College is that it’s acceptance rate is by 9.2%. It is very low acceptance for anyone who’s trying to join the college. Since it is a private college, I would make sense why it is very hard to get accepted into it. The GPA requirement is 3.93 or higher and you should a score of 1510 in SAT and a score of 34 in ACT. That college is truly looking for people who can actually go above average or excel with an academic gift of learning. Those are the manny reasons why I think Bowdoin College isn’t the college for me.
https://www.bowdoin.edu/index.html
Academic Profile: Ayanna Cade
This essay is a transcript of an interview that was conducted during the weekend about an Academic Profile. The interview that I had to organize was with my partner, Ayanna Cade. This interview was of Ayanna telling what was her academic self during grade school to college. Her academic self started as soon as she started her education. She went to Rock Chapel Elementary for Kindergarten through 5th grade, Lithonia Middle for 6th through 7th, and Shiloh High School for 9th through 12th. After Kindergarten through 12th grade, Ayanna went straight to college for the reason of wanting to graduate as fast as possible.
Ayanna has been to GSU for about a whole year. The reason that she chose GSU was and I quote, “I had a feeling that it was the school for me. I wanted to stay close to home because I didn’t want to be far away from my family and I didn’t want to pay for housing.” She will be getting her associates degree in Nursing at the perimeter college and will soon get an accelerated Bsn at the Atlanta Campus. The biggest influence of her academic self would be her father figure. Ayanna states, “Whenever I’m down or stressed from college, he always reassures me that I am smart and capable of anything.” Her father figure always motivates her and prepares her to be her best academic self. The few things that Ayanna is proud about her academic self is that she is more productive, more organized, and she doesn’t procrastinate anymore.
The frustrating thing about college for Ayanna is Advisement. This is actually a common subject that Ayanna and I share. She claimed that Advisement recommended her to take summer classes and what classes she needed to take for Nursing. Another thing that Ayanna finds frustrating in college is the workload given by professors. She told me that most professors don’t care about your personal life issues and they only care about if you turn in your work. Ayanna’s favorite video from our class time is “How to Studying: Part 5 of 5.” That video taught her a lot of information about studying tips, do’s and don’ts, and different ways to raise your grade. She didn’t have a particular reading that she favored but the video was her only interest. The last thing she told me was about her favorite subject. Her favorite subjects that she loves to learn is American Government and Health Science. Health Science is her favorite since she is a major in Nursing and American Government is for learning about our government and politics. This is the profile of Ayanna Cade, who is a brilliant student of GSU of Clarkston Campus.