Comparing Dance College to University Life

I'm sat on my bed in my university house writing this. I'm dressed in joggers branded with the logo of the performing arts school I left 4 years ago. I'm taking a break from the book I need to finish for a seminar tomorrow. I have a song stuck in my head that one of my classmates used to perform in singing classes. It made me cry then and it's making me cry now. When I was at dance school, I would bitch incessantly about university students who dared complain about their workload, which I rolled my eyes at whilst getting ready for a day filled with classes. I've wanted to write this post since this blog started two years ago and, in the final year of my degree, I think I'm ready. Which has been harder? Professional dance training or an academic degree? 

First up: the admissions process. The university admissions process has been streamlined and simplified so that it's all done online. There is a wealth of advice on every stage of it, and for the most part, applicants remain at a distance from the universities themselves. Even applying as an independent student (ie. not through a sixth form or college, as I'd already left) was pretty damn straightforward. Of the five universities I applied for, I only had to interview at one, and that day was mostly an excuse for them to show off their university, 'interviewing' me for only 15 minutes. Of the five universities I applied for, all five gave me an offer. Yes it was hard revising and working to get the grades to confirm my place, but for the most part, universities seemed desperate to prove themselves to me. On the other hand, my first dance audition began with an hour long speech about how the next 8 hours was our one chance to prove why we deserved a place at that prestigious school. They talked shit about how they probably wouldn't look at us if we weren't wearing make up, lectured us on diet, outlined the extortionate fees, and then asked jokingly if anyone in the room had £8 million to fund a new building they wanted. Every dance college audition I went to was emotionally exhausting, pitted us against each other, and made us blindingly aware that our fates were in the hands of the five people on the panel that day. They encouraged desperation and fuelled a fear of rejection. I went to about 10 dance college auditions, and was successful at gaining a place at 4 of them. The constant rejection, waiting and preparing took its toll.

Secondly: financial implications. Even after being accepted onto a professional performing arts course, the anxiety is not over. Most dance and drama schools are not funded in the same way that degrees are. There is a flat out per year fee (usually around £10000-£15000), no loans available, and only a sparse amount of privately allocated money for scholarships for the lucky few. Of the four schools I did get in to, I couldn't afford any of them. I was lucky enough that my parents funded me for one year of dance training, living in London, on the condition that after that one year, I would be completely on my own. So for that year, my day began at 7am getting the bus (cheaper than the tube) to college, doing 6-8 hours of intense dance and fitness training, and then getting the bus to work for 7pm, to do a closing shift which usually meant getting home at around 2am. This was all so that I could start saving to fund the tuition fees and living costs of my next year at dance college, and it was miserable. At university, money is tight, my maintenance loan only just about covers my bills, and having already benefitted from my parents generosity for a year at dance college, I don't take a penny from them now. I worked around 20 hours a week in my first and second years of my degree. I am only timetabled for 8 hours a week at university, so whilst the addition of the part time job didn't exhaust me, it did leave me feeling like I was always missing out on extra-curricular activities and spending time with friends. But the penny pinching and money management I do at university is based on making sure I have enough for the things I want to do, instead of the dance college struggle to be able to afford fees and rent.

Finally: the actual training/learning. Dance college was all consuming. It demanded the best of you for 40/50 hours a week, and demanded that it was your sole focus. University only timetables me in for 8 hours a week, the rest of the time is mine to manage studying, working and living in, which I do incredibly badly. It's harder to stay motivated at university as the success of a good essay only shows up as a number on a screen, and doesn't come very often. Training in dance, at least once a day I would have a class that made me feel like I was flying. At least once a week I would nail a new turn or trick I hadn't been able to do previously. As long as I made it in for the 9am start, they could get me to do what I needed to. At university it's all on me. 

For me personally, one of the biggest stumbling blocks for me at dance college was that I was having to support myself financially. Teachers demanded that dance was my only concern, but to be able to attend the school I had to work around 30 hours a week too. I wished I could do what they wanted, and only focus on dance, just work for pocket money, but I couldn't. The pressure to make dance your life, to bend your mind and your body to its will is something I cannot understate. It affected my mental health dramatically, and impacted my physical health too, as I bounced erratically between starving myself and binge eating and doing guilt-fuelled sit-ups to work it all off. But now I'm at university, the pressure to make one thing my only focus is something I actually kind of miss. Here I constantly feel as though I'm not doing enough, not doing the right things. It's fully acknowledged here that a degree is just the start of a career, which leaves you feeling like you're running so so fast but not getting any closer to the finish line. Dance college was more emotionally exhausting by far, but to an extent, when I left the building at 6pm, I could leave those emotions there too. At university, I'm expected to manage my studies myself, to find time to work, to do things that will ensure I have a nice fat CV when I leave. There's no turn off time, unless I enforce one. And I have to because otherwise I'll get mad at myself for not making the most of the social life afforded to me here, where I can walk 10 steps to a friends house or be at London in an hour. 

There are a lot of complaints about the mental health services at my university, and this is going to be where I make my final point about the differences between the two. On my first visit to this campus, I couldn't believe the amount of support I could see was offered, just from walking around as a visitor. In every building there was signs and posters asking if students were struggling, asking for their thoughts, telling them where to get help. Complaints procedures were spelled out, feedback was encouraged, everything was out in the open and constantly improving. When I was in full time dance training there was no pastoral care, and the phrase mental health was never mentioned. Certain teachers did a lot for us independently, keeping a close eye and sitting us down for a chat when they could see that we were frustrated and downcast. It makes me so mad that it was down to individuals and not something that was policy, because the fees at these schools are so stressfully extortionate, the body requirements so explicitly and frequently referenced, and the training is so fucking intense that those students NEED mental health care. If I ever win the lottery that's where I'll put a lot of my money, mental health care for those working in the performing arts. 

In dance college I would rant and rave if a university student tried to tell me how hard their day was. I would scoff and run through the finer points of my intense day and feel smug. I was such a bitch about it. Having now attended university, I can honestly say that both are incredibly difficult for incredibly different reasons. But my main lesson from this has been that we shouldn't dismiss other peoples complaints just because we deem them as less worthy of a moan than our own. If I tell you that you can't complain about your 4 hour shift because I just did a 6 hour one, then I'm basically saying that the only person who is ever allowed to moan is the person that's done the longest shift of all of us. That ONE person in the world is the only one with any right to moan. So none of us get to talk about the bits of our days and our lives that are shit. And that is really stupid. I've noticed some of my friends have a habit of starting a sentence with 'I know there's way worse things but...' or 'I know you guys do this way more but I find it really hard to...'. It's that kind of mentality that means people feel they can't talk about daily hardships and struggles, even with those they know care for them. So my policy since then has always been to never sneer at someone moaning about their life just because I see mine as way harder. We're all allowed to find things difficult, whatever exactly those things are.

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