<p>My D is applying to CMU and <em>loved</em> it during a visit earlier this year … but my wife and I are wondering about the first two years offstage (except for Playground) … my D says she’s looking forward to working on her skills (and it’s clear that crew responsibilities keep you busy) but I still bet it’s a lot harder than it sounds.</p>
<p>If anyone here is a student (or a parent) I’d love to hear more about how the “crew” years work - can anyone share, good and/or bad?</p>
<p>I graduated in May. You have 3 semesters in crew. Both your freshman year and 1 your sophomore year. Crew lasts anywhere from 2-5 weeks depending upon the size of the show. They usually try to be fair and make you do only 1 large scale show, but sometimes it doesn’t work out that way if you’ve been dubbed an “excellent” crew member. </p>
<p>Your first year, the idea of being in a show, on top of homework, on top of crew would be the worst thing they could possibly do to you. You’re already so busy, so tired, and so crazy that not making you do a show your first year is the most amazing thing they do for your. To put it harsly, every freshman would fail if they put them in a show right out of the gate. The schedule is just too rigorous. </p>
<p>Sophomore year you’re able to manage it much better which is amazing, and it’s only 1 time for the whole year.</p>
<p>During crew, it was hard. You’re not allowed to bring homework, your cell phones (some are more lenient then others), you can’t be late or you fail. If you don’t pass crew you can’t be in shows come junior year, and trust me there was a boy doing 3 semesters of crew in 1 the year after me. Crew is only easy to fail if you’re being lazy and stupid. It’s a great learning experience and you get to work with the older students, see their process, and get to know them in a way you wouldn’t have before.</p>
<p>Then by the time you get to perform, you remember what it’s like and go out of your way to make it easy on your crew. And don’t worry, the upper students take good care of the younger kids during that time.</p>
<p>I really think crew is great. You really wont hear many kids hating on it, except during those couple of weeks when the homework piles on. But Carnegie Mellon is all about teaching you time management, and if you learn NOTHING freshman year, you do learn that, and learn it well.</p>
<p>Being on crew has taught me a lot now as a graduated student in the real world.</p>
<p>Wow … very thorough. Thanks for taking the time to reply!</p>
<p>Remember that there is Playground as one performance opportunity too. And there is performing during the three months of summer break. </p>
<p>Many BFA programs do not allow freshmen to be cast (and yes, they have to do crew). As an applicant, it is easy to see how that sounds negative. However, as the poster above said, freshmen year is already very very full. My own kid is a graduate of another BFA program. I recall in her junior year when she was a lead in a mainstage musical, she expressed to us that she could see how the program wanted them to have some training under their belt at the college level before being cast in college productions and she was soooo glad that was the case as she felt her work on the production was much more impacted by having then had significant college training. </p>
<p>Another thing…CMU is a pretty small MT program. Since only juniors and seniors get to audition for the plays and musicals, it seems that most of them do have an opportunity to play a part at some point while at CMU as there are no freshmen or sophomores vying for casting too. They all seem to obtain some college credits.</p>