Source: EdSource
In 2021, I was a fresh-faced first-year journalism student at California State University, Dominguez Hills. It was exciting at first, but years of avoiding classmates and dodging small talk made integrating into college difficult. The idea of talking with anyone made me shaky and uneasy. I could have done it, but I just didn’t want to.
Theatre in college changed that.
I had been talking to people my whole life. But in college, I noticed that I only spoke to others when necessary. I could talk to my algebra teacher at a parent-teacher meeting, I could talk to the classmate I was paired up with for a chemistry project, and I could talk to the cafeteria worker when she asked me what type of juice I wanted at lunch — but even those situations were never easy.
Every time I spoke to someone, my heart would pound and my thoughts would race. “Did they like what I said?” or “Could they tell I’m being weird?” These questions ran rampant in my head on repeat, like a washing machine’s rinse cycle.
During my junior year at CSUDH, I enrolled in a theatre course to earn extra credit.
My classmates were mostly first-year students. We were initially awkward until the third week of the semester. Our professor had us play a trust exercise game, and I remember suddenly standing before my classmates pretending to be a pregnant woman on her way to the hospital.
I had never done anything so outrageous before in front of so many people. It was downright mortifying, but nobody judged me because they had to do the same thing. We saw that, as peers, we could be vulnerable and display our abilities in front of each other without judgment. We spent that semester reciting five-minute monologues, pretending to be everything from wounded soldiers to scorned lovers.
Freshman art major Giorgina Robles-Beltran shared a similar experience in class.
“I couldn’t remember all the lines, and I would pause and take a look at my paper to remind myself,” she said. “I felt so embarrassed when I was done. I began to tear up, and instead of the class staring and judging me, they clapped and gave me positive reinforcement.”
Before taking theatre, doing these things seemed impossible for me. My anxiety hindered my social growth during my high school years.
I finished my senior year of high school online due to the pandemic. I sat behind a screen listening to lectures with a camera tile that read “Jeremiah Rojas,” just a black box in a sea of others. My school was among 87% of public schools in the U.S. whose students’ social development was stunted by the pandemic, and this stuck with me until I got to college.
For my first three years in college, I went on campus when I had to, went straight to class and came right back home to sit in Zoom meetings with my camera off for my online courses. I preferred it that way because not having to interact with others face-to-face made me less anxious.
I wasn’t alone in this experience either. According to a 2023 survey from The Healthy Minds Network, 37% of university students surveyed said they experienced anxiety disorders, while 44% reported symptoms of depression. A 2024 report from the American College Health Association said 30% of over 30,000 surveyed students said anxiety hindered their academics.
At school, I never raised my hand in class out of fear of being scrutinized. I never attended a professor’s office hours because I was worried about wasting their time. I also never joined clubs, as I struggled to hold conversations without stuttering and had trouble steadying my shaking hands.
But in my experience, theatre education helped remedy my anxieties. It taught me that performance is everywhere. I learned how to adapt to different situations and conversations and how to play the right part. And like me, I believe theatre education can help others find their own voice.
Another freshman in my theatre class, Damon Moore, echoed this sentiment.
“It helped me be more confident and move past my fears because performing and acting is scary,” Moore said. “One of the things I also love about theatre is the connections I made. Being able to find new people who have the same interests as me is really special; it helped me to be motivated within my acting.”
I’m not an actor; I want a career in journalism. I graduated with a degree in journalism in May.
But I can’t shake my newfound passion for theatre and performance. My brief experience with theatre education has helped shape the person I am today, both academically and personally. It’s how I’m able to express myself in pieces like this one. In a way, the theatre helped me save myself.
Jeremiah Rojas is an alumnus of California State University, Dominguez Hills. He previously served as a staff reporter and managing editor for The Bulletin, his campus’ student-run newspaper. Jeremiah is a member of EdSource’s California Student Journalism Corps.
