BWW Blog: A Fish in the Sea

When deciding to pursue an education in Musical Theatre, it took a lot of convincing to my peers, counselors, and voice teachers that I'd be ready to go for it. My parents on the other hand were incredibly supportive, so that's something I was truly grateful for. However, nothing prepared me for what took place in some of those audition rooms. Through the college audition experience, I felt like I was thriving. The joy of being able to walk into a room, and share my talent with some strangers who seemed to have a higher power over me, was somehow exhilarating for me. And yet, as I walked out of the room, in some cases I was once again left questioning whether or not to pursue this overwhelming dream I had as a career.

In the end, I found my dream school at Coastal Carolina University. I was singing, dancing, and acting while being 5 minutes from the beach! As soon as I stepped on campus, and came out of my audition, I knew that this place would become my new home. Throughout my Freshman Year, I faced a lot of difficulties with my mental health and my confidence. However my first year wasn't just full of negatives, because I met some of the most incredible friends a guy could ever have, I thrived in my training, and was able to be in two mainstage productions, all while dealing with the overwhelming gloom that the first semester brought me. People always say the transition from high school to college is difficult, but to those "Karens" as we call them in 2020, I shrugged it off thinking I would be completely fine. But, truthfully the first semester of school was such a big adjustment. I started losing weight (maybe not so healthily, but honestly it was something I wanted to do anyway), and I put myself out there exuberating myself as the happy-go-lucky guy I am. Maybe I went a little overboard in putting myself out there, but the people who I did surround myself with were such amazing people, that I ended up thriving even more socially, and gained some life-long friends. And as it turns out in the second semester (before we moved online) I started to focus on myself, instead of trying to prove to people that I was "supposed" to be there. That's when I found more success in my weight loss, creating stronger bonds with people, and I even got an on-campus job working in the Theatre Office at CCU amongst some of the most incredible faculty I've ever met.

The point of this isn't necessarily just to share my story of overcoming some "difficulty" of the first year of college, but it's important to analyze the growth I've made not only as an artist within my first year at college but as a person. Something that was said to me that really stood out to me during my audition journey was this specific quote, "In high school, you were a big fish in a little pond, and now you're a little fish in a big pond". I wish that I had paid more attention to

this in my first year because it would've helped me realize that we're all fish. We're all supposed to be in that pond, and instead of trying to prove yourself, try to focus on growing yourself from the guppy to the big ol' salmon that's ready to take on the real world when he swims from the ocean at CCU to the NYC harbor.

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