That's my roommate!

In high school, dance class was an everyday activity for me . So when I got to college I didn’t know how to keep dancing seeing as my classes revolved around engineering. Luckily for me I had awesome roommates in the Glorya Kaufman School of Dance (check out their website: https://kaufman.usc.edu/) who let me into the studios to practice. I still felt that something was missing so once second semester rolled around I enrolled in a ballet class and went in for a meeting with the academic advisors at the dance school. It seriously couldn’t have been easier to become a dance minor, I just filled out the paperwork and then that day I was an official minor! I love being a part of the Kaufman family and have now made great friends who are so supportive of me as both a dancer and an engineer!

As a minor I get alerts for different auditions, tickets to shows, and access to practice in the studios. My favorite part was getting to go see Ballet BC, a contemporary ballet company, with my roommates and stay for a talk-back learning about the future of ballet. I have a whole drawer full of all the programs of performances I got to see because I was a part of Kaufman.

Being an engineer isn’t easy, so a lot people question my choice to pursue a minor, especially one in the arts. To me dance is a really healthy part of my time as a student. It exercises different parts of my brain that I don’t use in math class or physics lab. I feel like a better overall student when I dance regularly, focusing more and sleeping better. Switching gears during the day, so going from worrying about pirouettes to laplace transforms, also keeps me sharp and engaged in class making my days more enjoyable.

This is me doing homework for two classes at once: dance and physics