The average college student spends the standard 4 years in college—sometimes more depending on the major and personal progress. I did my 4 years at Wingate University in Wingate, NC, but then I decided that I should do two more. Two more years? So, grad school? Nope! Instead, I made the choice to get a 2nd bachelor’s degree in Musical Theatre. I originally didn’t see myself spending an additional 2 years in school, but life is crazy like that. Fun fact: my older sibling, Bree (’20), came to Winthrop for her 2nd degree in Dance Performance and her overall experience and happiness was one of the many reasons I came to Winthrop. As graduation is slowly getting closer (71 days left as of 2/24), I’ve been reflecting on my brief, but chaotic time here in Rock Hill and how fast these last couple of years has flown by. Here’s a little recap of some of the things I’ve learned.
- I hate being a commuter
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I live about 30 minutes from campus and it was a much different experience taking myself to school everyday as opposed to living on campus for all 4 years at my alma mater. I had the absolute worst time with parking when I first got here and I swear I found a note on my windshield at least once a week when I had to park on the street. I even had a Rock Hill resident call WUPO on me (and I most definitely cried afterwards). I’ve had a little more luck this school year compared to last year, but it’s still annoying having to stake out parking spots in specific lots. I really hope this gets fixed in the future because parking is a legit nightmare.
Aside from the never-ending parking issues, I feel so disconnected from campus. There’s no real commuter lounge and I can’t catch a quick nap during my lunch break like I used to when I lived on a college campus. Since I don’t live in Rock Hill, I can’t easily go home in-between classes unless it’s an emergency or a class later in the day gets cancelled. On top of this, most club meetings and campus events aren’t commuter-friendly. Do I really want to wait an extra 2 hours in my car or DiGS for an event I have to pay for? Unless it was something that actually piqued my interest or a cultural event, NO!
- Degreeworks is not my friend
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From what I’ve gathered, nobody seems to like DegreeWorks, and I will happily add myself to that list. Getting my credits from my alma mater transferred over to Winthrop was no easy feat. Somehow, Winthrop had my official transcript, but CVPA didn’t get it. I didn’t even get my schedule made until a couple of weeks before the start of the Fall 2021 semester. Only 13 of about 140 credits transferred over correctly and Anna Fredericks, Director of Student Services for CVPA, manually fixed the rest to the best of her physical ability and I am SO beyond grateful for her help. My DegreeWorks probably won’t be accurate until after graduation, but I’ll dig deeper as to why in a later section.
- You’re going to get a million questions
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Every time I had to introduce myself during the first week of classes, the questions come rolling in: “So grad school?” “A 2nd Undergrad?” “What IS that?” “What does that mean?” Getting a 2nd Bachelor’s degree is not something a ton of people regularly do and not all colleges have the allow to do so outside of double majoring, but after missing the first week of classes at the start of last school year due to a routine procedure, I gave up trying to explain what a 2nd Undergrad was—as if it’s not in the name—within a couple weeks and began to introduce myself as many things: a super-duper senior, a 5th/6th year (which was true, per FAFSA), old, etc. Now that I’m on my way out, I typically get asked about what my plans are now that I’ll have two degrees, and that’s probably the only question I’ll never properly answer.
- graduating became an issue
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This part is a real doozy, so I’ll do my best to keep it as concise as I can.
I knew coming in that I would be in and out in roughly 2 years, but little did I know in 2021 that it wouldn’t be so simple. I immediately ran into the issue of whether or not I had to take Winthrop’s gen ed classes in order to graduate. I was also told I didn’t have to take a minor, but that quickly changed when I arrived. My sister ran into a similar issue when she was a student, but because she had a Bachelor’s in Science degree, most of her gen eds got covered with credits except for HMXP. Soon, I found myself having to get overrides for almost every Theatre class I needed to take. Despite having priority registration, it always took me at least a week to get fully registered for all my classes. It wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago that I found out Winthrop was going to accept my gen eds from my alma mater in lieu of Winthrop gen eds and I can graduate in May!!! It got a little confusing at first with some talk about changing my catalog year and the registrar taking forever, but now it’s official and my advisor is probably more relieved than I am.
- I am old…
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I started college in 2017 and finished degree #1—BA in Music Performance with a Communication minor—in Spring 2021. I’m now in school with people who were in middle school when I first started college and it’s so awkward. Sometimes, I find it hard to fully relate to the kiddos. I’m not technically a millennial, but I can’t seem to keep up with the rest of Gen-Z sometimes. I also had to take most of my classes with the freshmen and that didn’t make me feel better. Now, I generally have a hard time making friends in new spaces because I’m introverted, but it was WAYYY more difficult this time around to get to know people and I had a terrible time trying to get comfortable with my new peers and it 100% made the adjustment to Winthrop really tough for me. I wasn’t technically a freshman, but I definitely felt more like a guest as opposed to a student at first. Before coming, I knew about 4 or 5 people—majority were my coworkers—and I rarely saw them. Reaffiliating with my fraternity, Sigma Alpha Iota, helped give me some normalcy, but I never saw most of the other sisters around campus beyond chapter—sadly, this is still the case, but I am closer with them now! Now, I have some folks I can call friends and acquaintances and I don’t feel like a loner anymore. Hopefully, I can get to know more people before I dip.
- It’s okay to not have an intense class schedule
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Because of the issue with my transcripts, my class schedule for Fall 2021 was made based off my unofficial transcript and I only had 6 classes and 12 credit hours, which was a HUGE adjustment for me. I started music school with 11 classes and 18 credit hours—my advisor made this schedule and I don’t even remember how I made it through, to be honest. While I never allowed myself to have that many classes ever again, I’d never had a schedule with less than 9 classes until I came to Winthrop. I even had a full day without classes, which would’ve never happened for me at my alma mater unless class was cancelled. Since I went from BA to another BA, I really only needed to take Winthrop Theatre courses to graduate (more on this in a bit), so it felt like a huge weight off my shoulders to have less classes.
- Do I actually know what i’ll do once i have a second degree???
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The answer? Probably not. Ideally, I want to continue with my work in the Entertainment industry, but I’m still working on trying to find a nice balance between my degrees and figure out a way to make them both work. i have a lot of talents and I’ve learned some new ones during my time here. Despite some of the negatives, my experience here has been positive overall and I’m really glad I made the decision to come to Winthrop. I’ve had some awesome folks in my corner helping me get through and I cannot thank them enough for getting me where I am! I also have to thank the friends in my circle that have also helped make life easier for me while I’ve been here :)