DePaul University

Date: Jul 18 2005
Major: Perfomance Arts (This Major's Salary over time)
I was an acting major. I got cut, because I wasn't totally into it. My heart was not invested totally 1005 of the time into the program. Some professors are geniuses others are just sadistic and on powertrips. I often find myself confounded by the fact that some of these people are on staff at this place which is supposedly the Number 1 Modern Acting conservatory in the country! I learned a lot. The program is very militaristic. It's like the marine corps for acting. You learn a lot but it is very very intense and competitive. Students run the risk of becoming obsessive-compulsive machines running solely on acting TECHNIQUE and little or no PASSION! DePaul has not come out with any actors that in the past 15 years that have been noteworthy. What does this tell you about how significant a degree or elite theatre program is in determining your success in the show business world? The rest of the university is decent but nothing exceptional. Better than a state university but the school is in bad shape. The university's president quit recently, the Barat campus was FORCED TO CLOSE, and the theatre building has not been renovated in 50 years! Where is the money going?

We had several electricity power outages (blackouts) that caused classes to be cancelled! Walls have holes in them from God knows what! many good faculty have left! one of the second year acting teachers claims that he has not seen an actor come through the program in ten years that he has liked! Cut system has caused students to develop panic disorders and in one case a female student had a nervous breakdown and had to quit the program! Beware! The elite standards will cause a lot of psychological damage to the acting students if they have the wrong attitude.