It’s Official!

To be more precise, the papers I needed to ink in order to transfer into the Interarts Performance program, a joint degree program offered by the Stamps School of Art & Design with the School of Music, Theater and Dance. I had been an unofficial part of the group since last semester, trying out a couple of classes and seeing whether it would be a good fit. And today, after an 8-month probationary period of sorts, I made it official.

Interarts is a relatively small program at such a large school like the University of Michigan, with an average of 4~6 students per year. Everyone’s interests are different, lying somewhere in the realm of performance and visual art. Everyone’s reasons for joining the program are different—some applied directly to the Interarts program, while others (like me) transferred into the program from different areas of study.

I joined Interarts because I felt limited within the art school—I came in last year without a very clear idea of what I wanted to do. I had never taken formal art classes, I just knew that visual expression was what I wanted to study because I enjoyed doing it. But going through foundation year, I realized that this rigid curriculum was something I had little interest in pursuing. I also felt like I was wasting so many resources at the University—a big part of the reason I chose Michigan over art schools was the fact that it was part of something bigger. I wanted the chance to explore other new fields of study and to continue pursuing my academic interests as well. But foundation year offered me little breathing room, and by the end of the year, I wasn’t very invested in becoming a solely visual artist.

Granted, every individual’s experience with foundation year is different. And to a certain extent, it is also necessary; with students coming from a variety of different skill sets and interests, foundation year provides us with the necessary aid to hone in on our basic skills that could be applied to multiple fields. And it’s also being improved from year to year, with both positive and negative feedback from students, so maybe in the coming years it will encourage more exploration.

Now that my official transfer has been processed, I’m prepared to make the most out of this semester (which a third of is already gone), shuttling between theater classes and art classes with a dash of engineering classes thrown in for fun (but not really). It’s an incredibly hectic semester so far, but I finally feel like I’m in the right place. After all, fitting into a single label was never my thing, and I don’t intend for it to ever be.