Trying to juggle a dance career while getting a high school education is hard enough. Let alone making the transition into college. There is so much more responsibility and commitment required to balance the college dancer life. Between exams and many, many dance classes and performances, the stress is too real.
One of the many struggles of the dancer life is that we're graded on our dancing ability and technique. Typically, in high school you take classes at a studio out side of school and they aren't graded, instead you do it for your own satisfaction. You already have enough stress on yourself from your instructor and peers to do your best, but now you have the added stress of a dance class affecting your GPA.
We also don't have time to compete like we normally do. Usually, we spend hours every night rehearsing and repeating our routines, step-by-step, to perfect them. But now with the packed schedule there is no way to practice and take off time to compete. Definitely, something we miss in the college life.
There's also not as much motivation from others around you. Most of your support and incentive is from your loving dance family that push you to do your absolute best. This includes your dance teacher that has yelled and screamed at you just to push you to your limit. Normal people would think that us dancers would be insane to put ourselves through this but this is what we live for. Now in the transfer to the college life everything is different. The teachers have so many students that it's not like your hometown dance studio.
And mostly, we miss our studio family. Granted, we love our new family and adore every minute that we spend laughing with them but nothing is better then growing up with your childhood best friends. From having day-long rehearsals to sharing the same dressing room during a performance, there's nothing that you don't miss.
New memories are great and all but nothing beats dancing with your performance family and laughing at old jokes. So, dancers, when you get to college know that not everything will be the same as it was before but don't let that kill your love for your passion.
