Why do undergrad programs focus on design?

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I hung out over the weekend with one of my good friends from College. After undergrad she worked a few years, got her MFA, landed a job in the lighting department at a major US dance company, assisted/associate LD'd on a few Broadways (one that got a Tony for lighting), got into USA829, and has a few off Broadway credits. Her biggest comment of that whole thing was there are simply too many MFA programs. I also think the same thing is true of undergrad theatre programs. When you look at the "notable alumni" of the college we both attended not a single person in deisgn/tech has listed designer. Everyone is technicians. Why is this? Why is she the only designer working out of our entire undergrad class when we were all taught design?

My personal feeling its due to this 1991 NYT article on Jennifer Tipton...
There are perhaps a dozen lighting designers in the country who work steadily enough to support themselves by their art, and maybe half a dozen who are acclaimed and in demand. Among these is Jennifer Tipton, characterized most often for the impeccability of her taste and a certain precision and cerebral quality to her work -- which have earned her two Tony awards, among other prizes during her 25 years in the theater.

So, why are undergrad college programs so focused on design? Why did we spend 80% of our time working on original design instead of 80% working on technical skills and throwing some design on top? Yes, having the design background is helpful when working in the technical disciplines, but no one is walking out of undergrad and into a design job. Even if they do land a design gig, they are still going to be supporting themselves with a wrench in their hand if they are lucky.... and the unlucky ones will be slinging drinks.

Recent grads... is this still true? Have programs transitioned? Is anyone in an undergrad program that aims to get their graduates to be able to pass either ETCP exam on graduation? Are we still producing scenic designer that can kind of work as a TD? LD's who can kinda be electricians? Sound designers that can kind of mix? Costume designers who can kind of stich? Are any programs teaching there is a ton of design work outside of theatre/dance/opera? Is any program giving up on teaching design as the primary at the undergrad level and saving the actual design education for grad school?
 
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I graduated a decade ago with a BFA in Theater Design/Tech. Most of my valuable career skills came from internships, not from my BFA program. I told them I wanted to be a theater consultant, my academic advisor told me to drop out and join a community tech school because they had nothing to offer.

Not surprisingly, when they upgraded all the venues to LED, their program floundered because the faculty had no ability to teach the practical side of how to design, program, or effectively use LED rigs. Their emphasis on what they considered "design" and what they didn't was hamstringing them, and faculty would outright say they were teaching curriculum aimed at preparing students for MFA's -- while really just producing students to get eaten alive by the "theater people must suffer for their art" model. Couldn't even get faculty to talk about the different career paths, how they negotiate design contracts, or any meaningful lessons on skills that are required to be successful. The expectation was just you work hard, do whatever you need to, and let the industry devour you for minimum wage like many before you. And...that's why the lighting design faculty member couldn't so much as find the power button on an Ion or Gio and embarrassed himself in front of a class of Intro students because he's never taken the time to learn anything after an Obsession II.

Fast forward 5 years from graduating, I was at ETC CUE. My ETC rep flew me up for the week and one of the Disney guys was giving a presentation on how they use Revit for all of their park design. That academic advisor who told me to drop out was across the room and I think the irony was lost on him that he had told me Revit had no value in learning. Thankfully another faculty member had pointed me to an option where I could get credit for a self-taught course to learn Revit on my own time and just check in with him occasionally on my progress.

I've since checked in with my college to see if they wanted to do a guest speaker type thing where I would come in or do a Zoom call and talk to interested students about other avenues for a meaningful career but those conversations haven't gone anywhere. Interestingly, my classmates who went similar routes to me (working for ETC, becoming programmers at rental houses, getting into systems design/installation, working for Disney/Universal) are the classmates who seem to have the strongest ties to the industry 10 years later. A fair portion of my classmates who just did traditional theater and did summerstock for their outside employment have since left the industry altogether.

Part of the problem seems to be that universities leverage the same exploitative practices to staff their shows and scene shops as theaters that have these crazy job descriptions wanting an MFA for a TD position that pays $40k/year. If they told their students to go get broad experience in different roles and learn the business side of the entertainment industry by getting diverse internship experiences, their summerstock program would evaporate. Getting overhire work at roadhouses was even frowned upon because running a roadhouse venue isn't art, and the faculty would actively rebut anyone who brought things they learned in roadhouse venues back into their academic design work.

It boggles my mind that anyone would spend an entire semester learning how to hand draft anymore. That time would better be spent either taking a 2D art class and learning how sketch or learning Vectorworks/Sketchup/etc -- but purely hand-drafting for a semester is just wasted time on zombie curriculum.

It would be remarkably easy to improve the status quo, but academic faculty by and large have no appetite for it because they want their students to come up in the industry the same way they did.

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Side note: We're currently in the process of finding candidates for a theater consulting position when our of team members retires soon. We've talked about several avenues for finding candidates, all of which are complicated because it's a relatively small niche of the industry, but college grads are especially difficult to find because there are so few programs teach any of the relevant skills. We could look for someone more interested in a systems design role or more interested in architectural design, and make that position fit into our team either way -- but finding anyone for either role might as well be browsing Craigslist for a unicorn and most importantly, so few grads have any idea what this line of work entails so they wouldn't even have a clue if they would enjoy it or that this career path even exists.
 
@MNicolai and I went to the same school though I graduated before him.
The only reason I learned anything relevant was because I worked at a theater at the time. Thats the only reason I learned anything about moving lights, LED and programming/control. Like him, I had to take independent study to learn CAD. We were barred from using any of the schools non-conventional fixtures in any of our designs because the professors didnt know how to use them.
I had to teach the professors and other students how to program moving lights when they finally did add some to a show. Again, the focus was on DESIGN! The only successful career was being a starving artist or a professor. That was my initial career plan until I got out of school and was already making more than the professors, and they had MFA's. I had a real awakening. Why suffer?
I never knew the plethora of opportunities outside of producing theatre until I graduated. Now I work for a manufacturer designing lighting fixtures. Fixtures that I was not allowed to learn about in school. Thank god I didn't listen to them.
Has the very expensive piece of paper that I earned there gotten me further than I would have without it? In some cases, sure. It's given me a higher salary for a couple jobs when I first started out, but I've now learned more than I ever learned in school.
Lets be honest... Universities have become profit making entities. They exist to make money and maybe educate some folks. Not every degree program that is offered at a university is necessarily valuable. There certainly are a number of degrees that are very relevant and required for different professions, but for us? I might debate the necessity.
I will say though that college did help me find and explore my career path. For me personally, I think it did get me to where I am now simply as a space for exploration and experience. And if a student isn't sure what they want to do, they may be interested in a few different things, I might suggest is as it can be a place to explore and experiment (in a number of ways for some folks) But if there was someone that was already decided and dedicated to a career in theater/tech, I might suggest they just start working and learning while getting paid. Just like an apprenticeship. Our industry mirrors that more of a trade than others. Are there some roles within it that require higher education? Yea, but we need more people that know how to do or build or execute. Just like the trades. Designers/engineers need knowledge, but the carpenters, electricians, ironworkers exc they make it happen and the only way to do that is by doing.
I think it's more societal pressure that kids feel they MUST go to college. We need to change that, but it'll take time.
 
@rsmentele, there are large number of grads from that school working with you too. They very quickly pivoted away from traditional theater for the same reason -- quality of life.

I would always joke that the main benefit of that school was that it wasn't close to anything but it was in the middle of everything. So for those willing to drive an hour, it was between Madison, Milwaukee, and a little farther away Chicago. I was doing 30,000 miles of driving a year between school and internships. Was actually very dangerous between deer crossing the roads, driving late at night, almost falling asleep a the wheel many times, and icy roads. I wouldn't recommend that lifestyle to anyone and in hindsight it was reckless of me and not remotely healthy, but it was the only way to tether myself to the more professional sides of the entertainment industry only marginally less healthy than anchoring myself with concrete boots to traditional theatre.

BTW, most of those non-conventional fixtures you talked about were trashed by the time I was a student. All the motors were seized up because they hadn't been used enough and one of the students made a desperate attempt to repair them to little avail. God love Steve Chene and Dave Nees -- they were primary redeeming qualities that university had. For those reading this, Dave was the TD at the roadhouse on campus. He would actually regularly get in spats with the academic theatre program because he would "steal" their talent, and they would learn more in the roadhouse than in the classroom. He was persistently baffled that he could find business majors with more sensibility for color theory than arts majors. He also got blackballed by USITT for trying to organize a working group within USITT for educational roadhouse venues. When he retired, he also made quite a bit of noise that the job description to replace him required an MFA. He was very clear that talent, managerial skills, the ability to be a mentor was far more important than having an MFA, and that having an MFA guaranteed none of those traits.

Also for those reading this -- it sounds like I'm describing just a godawful college, but in Wisconsin it's one of the top theater schools. Not the top, but if you went to the top theater school, you were so far in the woods that you were completely isolated from the broader industry. Or you went to one of the next best options in an urban area and dealt with what I understood at the time to be a somewhat toxic environment within their theater dept. I moved to Florida 7 years ago so I have no idea if that's still the case, but suffice it to say, colleges have so much institutional inertia that they are not keeping up with industry trends and alternative career, and in some cases are not even trying or, worse, actively working against them.
 
When I was a student at SUNY Purchase many decades ago, it was the same problem, the design faculty was teaching design, not technical theater. They had a terrific lighting teacher - Billy Minzter, who was a good Broadway designer and a good teacher. Problem was he was teaching how to become a Broadway designer. Some of these students actually became Broadway designers, but maybe 3 or 4 out of 20-30 lighting students. They were not teaching much, the technical part of stage lighting.

Fast forward 40 years as I retired at Brookly College, where until right before I left, had a Tony award winning lighting professor, and same problems. No technical students and I KNOW all those in the program that desired to go into lighting as a career did not want to be designers. They actually had a student who indicated she wanted to become a moving light programmer and the design head promptly made her the stage manager for 2 years. It was expedient and was what the program head needed at the time, and screw the students desires. Yet, they had no classes on the mechanics of mounting a show, dealing with networks, programming nodes, configuring LED plots with 250 units. That all had to get done by the full time staff or over-hire as it simply was not getting taught. It was so bad that the program could not round up or assign enough students to act as crew to install the lighting rig. One show had the had carpenter/TD hanging the entire over stage rig by himself. I spent way too much time dealing with Vectorworks, Lightwright and EOS off-line as none of the students got taught about this. The program got lucky in a way in that Mr. Tony Award opted to move on to a different NYC university and the adjunct replacement is excellent and involved., maybe they'll get smart and hire him full time. It seems though that the intent of the program is to teach designers, not technicians, which is unfortunate.

FWIW I had this same conversation 3 years ago with Stan Kaye , head of the program at University of Florida, and he stated its a problem at most colleges. the only school he was aware of that seemed to have an abundance of technical students was Univ. of Texas, Austin, that for some reason had a huge student body in the technical program, so had a lot of students doing technical theater.
 
When I was a student at SUNY Purchase many decades ago, it was the same problem, the design faculty was teaching design, not technical theater. They had a terrific lighting teacher - Billy Minzter, who was a good Broadway designer and a good teacher. Problem was he was teaching how to become a Broadway designer. Some of these students actually became Broadway designers, but maybe 3 or 4 out of 20-30 lighting students. They were not teaching much, the technical part of stage lighting.

Fast forward 40 years as I retired at Brookly College, where until right before I left, had a Tony award winning lighting professor, and same problems. No technical students and I KNOW all those in the program that desired to go into lighting as a career did not want to be designers. They actually had a student who indicated she wanted to become a moving light programmer and the design head promptly made her the stage manager for 2 years. It was expedient and was what the program head needed at the time, and screw the students desires. Yet, they had no classes on the mechanics of mounting a show, dealing with networks, programming nodes, configuring LED plots with 250 units. That all had to get done by the full time staff or over-hire as it simply was not getting taught. It was so bad that the program could not round up or assign enough students to act as crew to install the lighting rig. One show had the had carpenter/TD hanging the entire over stage rig by himself. I spent way too much time dealing with Vectorworks, Lightwright and EOS off-line as none of the students got taught about this. The program got lucky in a way in that Mr. Tony Award opted to move on to a different NYC university and the adjunct replacement is excellent and involved., maybe they'll get smart and hire him full time. It seems though that the intent of the program is to teach designers, not technicians, which is unfortunate.

FWIW I had this same conversation 3 years ago with Stan Kaye , head of the program at University of Florida, and he stated its a problem at most colleges. the only school he was aware of that seemed to have an abundance of technical students was Univ. of Texas, Austin, that for some reason had a huge student body in the technical program, so had a lot of students doing technical theater.

And that might be the second issue. The people teaching at the top programs ARE the successful designers... the ones who are teaching at the rest of the programs wish they were the successful designers. Even the successful ones that have a Tony or two have to teach to support themselves. Even they can't survive just by designing... and we won't even talk about the people who go undergrad to MFA to teaching.
 
Its just odd that those faculty setting up the program have just forgotten that they A) Need technicians to staff the program, B) Many of the students do not want to be designers and would prefer a training in the technical part of the craft. Theres always a fight with the university over line positions and they seem to not want to "waste" the few they get on teachers teaching the technical. You have zero technical students to install a show, but just hired a dramaturge.
 
Technical theatre is not taught extensively because undergrads are told that doing physical work is beneath them. The should aspire to be a designer and have grunts realize their designs for them. In the mean time, those students become the grunts, mostly then buying into the narrative about being a designer because they find out that being a tech is dirty, not respected, and usually pays badly. The carrot on the stick of design work looks more appealing.
 
From another perspective, design is about "expressing your artistic voice," and often compared to being a painter or sculptor. (Oddly, I hear this phrase more in terms of lighting design than scenic design.) Awards get offered for a stunning design, which is often seen as the work of an individual rather than team effort. The designer is viewed as the person who oversees the implementation of that design -- ie, the technicians' manager -- and the one who directs their work.

Where technicians really shine are in smooth logistics (and safety). But an audience never sees that, and the difference between a poorly-planned load-in and a one that goes efficiently (and safely) is mostly felt by producers and production managers ... who, sadly, don't seem to reward that skill as well as they could. It's also a skill that's largely taught by error and trial.
 
Technical theatre is not taught extensively because undergrads are told that doing physical work is beneath them. The should aspire to be a designer and have grunts realize their designs for them. In the mean time, those students become the grunts, mostly then buying into the narrative about being a designer because they find out that being a tech is dirty, not respected, and usually pays badly. The carrot on the stick of design work looks more appealing.
I remember once in my senior year sitting at a friday afternoon "design seminar" with the full tech/design department faculty and students. About 25-30 of us or so. I brought up that I don't think we are being taught how to do something, I think it was rigging related. I was told by our department head "Thats for someone else to do, you don't need to worry about that, we're teaching you how to be a designer". 15 years later that moment is still burnt into my brain.
 
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Its just odd that those faculty setting up the program have just forgotten that they A) Need technicians to staff the program, B) Many of the students do not want to be designers and would prefer a training in the technical part of the craft. Theres always a fight with the university over line positions and they seem to not want to "waste" the few they get on teachers teaching the technical. You have zero technical students to install a show, but just hired a dramaturge.
So thinking back on that yes you are right. It wasn't our professors actually teach us the hands on how to do stuff, especially in lighting. In scenic world I had a Yaley TD my sophmore and jr year... I learned a TON from him and it was all hands on. Without him I would not have spent my first 2 "real" jobs as a welder. But... most of what we learned in how to be a ME or A1 was taught by older students. You'd be and AME and learn how to do it. Next show they'd throw you in as an ME. There was a small cohort of us who'd go to every light hang/focus/load in and help out. Those were the times you actually learned. But, none of that was required beyond your tech assignment that show. Some people did well. Others didn't. My junior year I had a senior as my M.E. It took her 3 days to hang all the fixtures in our blackbox (with a crew of 6 plus her and an AME). For focus we ran around with a 100' stinger because she couldn't get everything circuited. 3 months later she left with a degree. She now sells houses... or at least trys to. Ironicly too a lot of what people knew about the physical part of electrics and especially audio was carried from HS theatre experience. I was the only student that could do a bare end tie in... because I learned how to do it in high school.
 
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<<<<faculty would actively rebut anyone who brought things they learned in roadhouse venues back into their academic design work.>>>>
I can't tell you how many times as a community theater self taught LD and tech "guru" I've worked with students and told them.. "This is how we do it here, and it works, but don't you
dare go back and tell some professor what a good idea it is"
 
I went to an engineering college, so my viewpoints are a bit skewed. When I started, we only had an undergrad program, and it was design/tech focused. We had no acting students, just volunteers from the rest of campus. The biggest hole was not that the faculty didn't/wouldn't/couldn't teach tech, but that they had been in academia for so long, they were way behind the curve.

Our highest technology available was scrollers, and we barely used them because they were too loud in the blackbox. We had some moving lights and a hog 2 in the proscenium/roadhouse, but they were only brought out for special occasions, and a very limited number of people were allowed to work with them, for fear of breaking them.

All that being said, my professors were amazing at teaching both the design and the equipment that they had on hand. They simply didn't have the stuff or the experience to teach the rest of it, and we were so isolated that there weren't a lot of other places to go to learn it.

The academic world really needs to learn to reach out to industry in the same ways other programs do. You basically couldn't graduate with an engineering degree without at least one industry internship, why should theater be any different? When they added an "Engineering Technology" (CNC, practical application, manufacturing) alongside traditional engineering, they nearly doubled their student body in the program, and dramatically increased their graduation rate. We need to emulate those ideas.

With a good program, and dedicated professors, I still left having never programmed a moving light, nor touched a chain motor, nor knew what three phase power was. I can't imagine how unprepared students are from purely design programs. Wait, I can, I've interviewed them for positions, and they didn't know squat.
 
Wow, this thread hits really close to home with me, even 21 years after getting my degree. I agree with what other have said. I worked for a roadhouse at a very busy community college while getting my BA in Theatre Design and Production at a near by university. Best decision I ever made. I learned far more working at the roadhouse and made many more contacts than I ever did at the university. Professors would be in over their heads with most questions I asked them after a weekend of working a broadway touring show or a weekend of freelance concert work. Although, for me, the degree itself has still opened many doors.

In a time where college is so expensive, I strongly feel like community colleges and universities need to expand into more certification programs. Our industry would be far better served with a well designed certificate program where students learned about electricity and power distribution, rigging, event safety, audio fundamentals, OSHA 10 or 30 and lift training / fall protection, programming time on popular sound and lighting boards and software, etc. Combine this with lots of hands on time with gear and, perhaps, working with professionals a bit in a roadhouse, they would be well prepared to launch into the industry without the heavy load of debt from a 4 year degree. IATSE locals could partner in the creation of such programs and serve as mentors. I know of no local who does not desperately need qualified workers. It could even mirror what the IEBW or carpenters unions and their training or apprentice programs have done in recent years

And, if I see another position in our industry requiring an MFA for a $45,000 salary and looking for a decade experience, I just might scream.

~Dave
 
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Wow, this thread hits really close to home with me, even 21 years after getting my degree. I agree with what other have said. I worked for a roadhouse at a very busy community college while getting my BA in Theatre Design and Production at a near by university. Best decision I ever made. I learned far more working at the roadhouse and made many more contacts than I ever did at the university. Professors would be in over their heads with most questions I asked them after a weekend of working a broadway touring show or a weekend of freelance concert work. Although, for me, the degree itself has still opened many doors.

In a time where college is so expensive, I strongly feel like community colleges and universities need to expand into more certification programs. Our industry would be far better served with a well designed certificate program where students learned about electricity and power distribution, rigging, event safety, audio fundamentals, OSHA 10 or 30 and lift training / fall protection, programming time on popular sound and lighting boards and software, etc. Combine this with lots of hands on time with gear and, perhaps, working with professionals a bit in a roadhouse, they would be well prepared to launch into the industry without the heavy load of debt from a 4 year degree. IATSE locals could partner in the creation of such programs and serve as mentors. I know of no local who does not desperately need qualified workers. It could even mirror what the IEBW or carpenters unions and their training or apprentice programs have done in recent years

And, if I see another position in our industry requiring an MFA for a $45,000 salary and looking for a decade experience, I just might scream.

~Dave
Ya I'm with ya there. The reason I went to the school I did was that there was a 2,000 seat road house on campus. The theatre dept only did 1-2 shows in there a year. But, I could work there as a stagehand and picked up a ton of experience there. Being now that I run a road house... it was rather critical to getting me there. And yes, just like you the theatre department was against us working there.

Fast forward to spring semester senior year. At that point I was doing overhire in Peoria IL for the IA in their arena. Got a call to do in/show/out for blue man group (the 2 days before, why do all IA halls do this?). Had a load in scheduled in our blackbox for a small set. Asked for the day off to go do the arena show. Was told no. Did the arena show anyway. Pissed off the TD and failed shop for that semester because they would rather have me (and 20 other people) install a box set in a blackbox then 25 truck arena show.
 
Ironic that for a period of time, the theater design program head was actually prohibiting his students from working the road house next door. He didnt want the work interfering with their class work. It was subsequently pointed out that he had no way to enforce that any more than he could tell a student not to have a part time job at McDonalds.

I am aware of 2 schools that teach production, North Carolina School of the Arts has always had a track where students could learn to be technicians. As well, the City University School of Technology is oriented towards teaching students the technical end of things.
 
Ironic that for a period of time, the theater design program head was actually prohibiting his students from working the road house next door. He didnt want the work interfering with their class work. It was subsequently pointed out that he had no way to enforce that any more than he could tell a student not to have a part time job at McDonalds.

I am aware of 2 schools that teach production, North Carolina School of the Arts has always had a track where students could learn to be technicians. As well, the City University School of Technology is oriented towards teaching students the technical end of things.
All too common. Blows my mind how these two things don't work together. I attempted to get my "shop hours" one semester moved so I could work at the roadhouse instead. That was a hard no. Why these programs don't see those places as a huge learning opportunity I don't know.

And the irony there is the one Broadway designer I know who is working with only his undergrad had a degree from NCSA. He was also my roommate at one of my summerstocks. When he told me about that program and what it looked like for an undergrad I knew I chose the wrong school. The stuff they do there with undergrads is insane.
 
(As soon as I saw this thread title I knew I'd see @SteveB in it...)

I'll do a real new user/introduction post at some point but I wanted to chime in here as this is a subject that is very close to my heart (and is finally getting me to post something on CB after lurking for probably 15 years).

I got a whole lot of great knowledge out of my undergrad theater design major, but only because I essentially exploited my time in the facility to get what I really wanted, which was as much hands-on, actual experience doing things as I possibly could. I basically turned into the unofficial shop apprentice with how much time I spent building and doing and learning. I learned to weld, I learned how to be an ME, I programmed for and assisted the MFA light and sound designers, I helped build and rig all kinds of scenery, and eventually when I started running into the limits of what I was allowed to do as a student, I wandered across the loading dock to the roadhouse half of the performing arts center, and asked the Production Manager for a job as a stagehand. Though I'd been working freelance for some time before then, I consider that point the real start of my career, and perhaps not coincidentally the beginning of the end for my degree progress. Students going to work for the nearby roadhouse seems to be much more common than I thought, and apparently so is their theater department shunning them when they do so. Never finished my degree, for a variety of reasons, but I'm making a living and it hasn't cost me a job yet.

What I was looking for, a real education in technical theater, was not on the menu then. As an undergrad, you were the unskilled labor, where you showed up for whatever process was already well underway that day, and everything often felt entirely separate from what was being discussed in the classroom. Maybe you moved this box, or base painted this flat, or maybe hung this light if you'd picked up the skill in at some point. Nobody was asked to do anything dangerous or unsafe that would require some real training, but there was hardly anything available to do as an undergrad that required more than a minute or two of instructions anyway. And there was almost never any time for any explanation of why you'd do it that way, or not some other way, or why something was important or not, and when that explanation did happen, it was always the TDs taking the time to do it in the shops, and never a part of a class, if it even came up in the classroom at all.

You essentially had to find a way to learn outside of the framework they offered you as a student, either by working directly with the TDs, or befriending MFA designers who needed help (and they always needed help), or finally going across the way and working on shows with a paying audience and a real producer and a boss who was looking at their crew to solve some sudden problem, where you got a fast education on how working professionals did their jobs.

Nowadays thankfully there's been a shift in how they handle student labor in that program, thanks largely to the TDs pushing very hard to create a system that works better both for them and the students, and there's a good deal more structured learning. Maybe today you're cutting and framing show flats, and so you're going to learn about cutlists and tool safety and operation, and then that crew is going to assist the TDs in raising and rigging a show ceiling in the black box, but first it's time to learn about installing the hanging hardware and prepping shackle and chain. But that's just one of the classes in a semester, and the rest are, as far as I can tell, largely the same classes that I took years ago, though maybe taught by someone with a more recently minted skillset. And three hours once a week isn't a whole lot of time. A general theater BA or even a "design/tech" BFA is still not really a technically focused degree. So students are learning a bit more of the technical end of things, but not enough I think to go out and be a carp or an electrician or a painter, and I don't think that reality is even on the department's radar as something worth examining further. There's still some room to do what I did, and make your own technical theater program to get what you want, but you're really sort of working against the grain as it were.

Often the answer to "why are you so focused on design for undergrads and not technical skills?" that I've heard before is "well how do you expect incoming MFAs to be prepared for grad school if they didn't learn design in undergrad?". To which I (maybe flippantly) think "I dunno, somewhere else? And why are you only concerned with whether you're preparing undergrads to enter a grad design program?"

Assisting the theater department TDs as a student was a key part of my technical education, just as much as working for SteveB as an electrician and programmer. What I got out of my undergrad design classes... maybe not so key. And looking back on a decade and a half at all the students I met either while a student or later while working next door at the roadhouse, maybe a dozen are even still working in any kind of entertainment, and of that number perhaps two or three are designers.

I dunno, many many more thoughts, but wanted to contribute a bit to a conversation I've had many times in person but never here. Hope it wasn't too rambly. And hello!
 
In a time where college is so expensive, I strongly feel like community colleges and universities need to expand into more certification programs. Our industry would be far better served with a well designed certificate program where students learned about electricity and power distribution, rigging, event safety, audio fundamentals, OSHA 10 or 30 and lift training / fall protection, programming time on popular sound and lighting boards and software, etc. Combine this with lots of hands on time with gear and, perhaps, working with professionals a bit in a roadhouse, they would be well prepared to launch into the industry without the heavy load of debt from a 4 year degree.

And, if I see another position in our industry requiring an MFA for a $45,000 salary and looking for a decade experience, I just might scream.

~Dave
Here in Australia we have the usual university degrees in design and technical subjects (I have a few friends that have a BA in audio) but we also have certificate levels.
Last year I completed my Certificate III in Live Production and Services. This course was a very entry level certificate which covers most areas of technical theatre to connect and test systems as well as some customer service modules. It is designed for someone to walk in off the street not knowing anything and be able to get some basic skills. Most of us on this course were much more skilled in all areas covered so it was a bit of a box ticking exercise however I can see the value in it. The next levels are Cert IV and Diploma. The Cert III took 12 weeks at 2 days a week. the other Cert courses will take quite a bit longer and are much more in depth.
I (and lots of my tech friends) are mostly unqualified but highly skilled technicians working in a industry that we enjoy most of the time and we can earn ~$65k Au FTE. Most of us work casual or part time. I currently work for 3 (applied for a 4th) venues in my area (well one is 130km away and one is 1.8km away) and this gives me a variety of work to keep me off the streets.
So for this unqualified person who believes that you don't always need qualifications but you do need experience (and I am willing and able to train new people) I have a saying "Experts were beginners once"
I work in this industry because I fell into an opportunity and I haven't looked back- only forward learning new skills!
My Perspective
Geoff
 

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