Babe Ruth once said, "Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game"and it's true. It is true in sports; however, it can also be valid in all sorts of lifetime activities. It'sa quote that is easily relatable to everyone's dreams in the world for all types of reasons. I knew that to me, it was definitely something I could connect and channel to my life, especially in one particular part of my ongoing passion: theater. Theater has helped me want to strive to achieve my highest goals rather than being placed as average or worrying about "striking out" and failing.

I trembled with excitement, the blood trickling up my nerves. I knew this was going to be an experience of a lifetime. The beginning of college always felt miles away; however, it entered upon me very rapidly. Although it was a semester's load of work, in just 6 weeks, it was the best summer of my life. The training would begin and I would no longer have an excuse to lack in performance quality and skill level. My standards sky rocketed higher than ever as I meandered my way to class. First came acting, followed by dance, then singing, and finally audition. I was so in awe of all the other's that I became a little timid of how they would react to my work in the classroom. I purely remember it like it was yesterday, a few weeks into the program, when we generated our first reading of monologues we had compiled ourselves.


Recalling that it had taken many days to find these "golden"masterpieces, I had never hypothesized on where to begin with creating such rich, dynamic spectacles. I looked around, holding back from going first, hearing nothing but a pin drop in the room. Finally, after other students had begun and completed their pieces, it was my turn to present. Now, I hadn't accomplished
particularly any training in acting beforehand, of attending this program, and had only produced theater acting through my director's perspectives, so I was quite fearful of "looking bad". The first try was over; A bit of relief came breezing over my shoulders as I obtained my constructive criticism and sat quietly back in my chair. It had seemed as if a great deal of time had passed, it was merely a minimum of three minutes total all together. Many, it seemed, had prepared long before arriving on campus for this one class, compared to what I could do. But,
that moment got me thinking. Running through my head was why I do theater and all the reasons why it so important to me. Then it hit me: I came here, to this program, with two purposes in mind. One, being that I wanted to learn more about the field and become educated, but more importantly, to evolve myself around people who are much more advanced than me to give me the chance to strive to become better. With this in mind, it helped me to recognize that theater
has helped me to strive for larger goals rather than being satisfied with been placed as "average".


Learning from this six week journey, my belief of achieving larger goals has started to play a role not only on the stage but in reality, all throughout my life. I have become more aware of wanting to improve on school work, such as tests, quizzes, and homework along with my involvement with community service. This creed is important to me because I know that in my future, I will benefit from working harder at my craft. Also, the intensive program was important to me because it really showed how hard it is to make it and be good at something. It really put into perspective how many years of practice and dedication it takes to perfect such a rigorous field of study. Also, it gave me a chance to want to work harder because I was surrounded by people who were more experienced and were, too, on their way to reaching their highest goals.