School of Theatre students discuss overworking, difficulties completing Hub requirements

  By Sangmin Song and Maria Searcy

Students studying at School of Theatre in the Boston University College of Fine Arts expressed their concerns with an excessive workload in their program along with the academic requirements, including the BU Hub.

Thomas Vice, a sophomore in the College of Fine Arts and an acting major, said students in SOT have a lot of workload with their theatre classes compared to other students in other majors.

“We have multiple three hour classes a week, usually they are at least two hours for our theater classes and that takes up a significant chunk of our day,” he said. “Rehearsals are almost every night, and they could last an hour but that’s very rare and they could be as long as three hours.”

Director of SOT Susan Mickey wrote in an email the school tries their best to help students complete all requirements, and assigns them professional advisors.

“Within SOT, we prepare SOT majors for professional careers in the arts by giving them experience with (and equipping them with respect for) the many roles required to make theatre happen: from build crew, to actors, to audience relations,” Mickey wrote. “Last year, 100% of SOT graduates completed their HUB requirements.”

Mickey wrote that an updated curriculum for SOT students is currently being reviewed by the University.

“After a 2 year review, SOT is in the process of updating and revising its curriculum to give majors even more flexibility, especially with electives,” she wrote. “The revised curriculum was approved by the SOT faculty and the CFA faculty.”

Vice said SOT students still need to meet the same BU Hub requirements — all while completing long classes and “time-consuming” homework sessions in their school.

“Along with all the classes that we’re taking that already fill up so much time, we get to be in shows which is obviously what we want to do here,” Vice said. “And on top of that, we have to take a bio class or a science class or whatever math requirements we’d have to still fulfill.”

Other students like Caleb Dean, a sophomore in the CFA and a technical production major, agreed that they use a lot of time to complete their required Hub courses.

“Classes from my intended major have a very specific set of Hub credits, and those take up a bulk of my schedule,” Dean said. “So I don’t have as much time to go get my other required Hub credits from other classes.”

Dean mentioned there already have been students in SOT who decided to withdraw from the program and study in another college at the University.

“All of the now-sophomores have expressed their displeasement with how little the mandatory introduction classes that you have to take your first year contribute to your Hub classes,” he said.

Ariel Narayan, a sophomore currently in CFA but planning to transfer out of SOT, said students in SOT are treated as “free labor for the school.”

“It’s about 24 to 35 hour-work weeks of outside credit hours that you’re doing and you’re getting two (academic) credits for that,” Narayan said. “Sometimes you have to work 12 hour days on weekends and you’re not getting paid, you’re paying to do it because it’s a course.”

Narayan said it was “too much” for her which is why she decided not to be in the production courses this year.

“You’re expected to pour a lot of energy into it and devote all of your time to this program, which is understandable for conservatory, but we’re not a conservatory,” Narayan said. “We follow this conservatory style, very intense program, but then at the same time we’re also expected to follow the liberal arts pattern of the Hub.”

Students who are still in SOT said they want more measures done for them by the school.

“I haven’t heard personally of any action being taken on the administrative side when it comes to any complaints made by students,” Vice said. “(There) hasn’t resulted in any progress on the front of getting the Hub not to be required for CFA students.”