<p>britbrat, while my D was not a recruited athlete, she was a varsity athlete all four years of college. And this was at a very demanding college, an Ivy league school. Her life was very busy indeed, much like my MT kid’s life. The amount of class hours IN CLASS was not as much as my BFA kid has. But I would liken her out of class hours for her sport to something like my other kid devotes to rehearsals. In off season, she had seven practices per week. In season, she had two full mornings away from campus for training and her entire weekend away from campus every weekend, plus one week per year of missed classes for the national championships for her sport. I am not even counting here that she was involved in other extracurricular pursuits as well at college. She even managed to do the entire specialized graduate admissions process this year while going to classes, being a TA for a class, and being in her varsity sport. </p>
<p>The only comparison that I can see is the hours a MT kid puts into rehearsals outside of class to what the athlete puts into practices/games outside of class. Those are EXTRACURRICULARS. </p>
<p>But what most of us here are trying to tell you is that IN CLASS, a BFA in MT kid has many more hours of class time than regular college students have. WAY more hours. My BFA kid has nine classes that meet for something like 30 hours per week. A regular BA student has about four or five classes that maybe meet 15 hours a week? </p>
<p>We are not really trying to tell you that your son will be too busy to major in Engineering and a BFA in MT. Simply the hours for the many required and inflexible classes for both those specialized degrees are unlikely to mesh and be able to be fit into the schedule. We are just talking of CLASS TIME. But then outside of class, the MT kid has hours of rehearsal…(my MT kid rehearses every night approx. 6:30 PM to 11 PM and on weekends too) and so an engineering kid is going to have hours of problem sets and I am not sure how those would fit in because I can just tell you that my BFA in MT kid goes to school ALL DAY and rehearses ALL NIGHT and on WEEKENDS and has to already fit in homework for all those classes and prep work for the training style classes. I don’t see engineering meshing with a BFA in MT both in class time and outside of class time. </p>
<p>By the way, the difference between going for a BA in theater/MT vs. a BFA is not so much as to which will lead to becoming a performer…because BOTH paths could lead a student to that. The difference is more that a BFA program is heavily weighted on the classes in that major and less classes in liberal arts and in a BA, there is more flexibility and the major in theater is only about 35% of the coursework. Both paths can lead to performing. A BFA is more fitting for a student who wants to concentrate primarily on theater and is fully committed to that one focus. Someone who wants to equally focus on TWO areas, generally speaking, is more suited to a BA double major, not a BFA. SOME BFA programs (but NOT ALL) allow for a second major or a minor (minor is more likely)…example: Tisch or UMich. But I have never heard of a BFA in MT that allows for a double major with a specialized degree like engineering. Both engineering and BFA programs are not NORMAL majors. Both involve way more credit hours and class time in the major than BA majors do.</p>