The Undergraduate Saga: Installment 1

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my experience as an undergraduate, and I’ve decided that writing about it might be, oh, cathartic. Not sure why it’s coming up now – it was over thirty years ago, and I thought it was all behind me. Interestingly, it is the period of my life that I talked the least about to my therapist during my billion years of therapy, so that may explain a lot. Then recently, a colleague of mine asked me “what path I had taken” academically to get to the place where I am now, because she wanted to advise a student. My advice to the student: don’t try this at home.

So, this is my Undergraduate Saga; a kind of mental spring cleaning, if you will. Since I know many of my own students read this, I will describe it as a cautionary tale, or how NOT to conduct your undergraduate career. It may be hard to imagine your crusty old professor having these experiences, but believe me, I am not making this up.

My high school graduating class had something like 350 people in it. I excelled academically in high school, and for reasons that had mostly to do with the fact that I was the lead singer and keyboard player in a local rock band and was always singing in high school shows, I was voted class musician. My audition at the large northeastern university where I did my undergrad work, however, was a disaster. I had studied classical piano as a kid, but for the 4 years or so previous to my audition I had mostly played popular music and mostly by ear, in addition to playing guitar, singing in the concert choir at school, and singing in the aforementioned rock band. I took some brush-up lessons with my choral director, Mr. Wrinn, and then drove over to the university to audition, with my high-school-boyfriend along for moral support. No one greeted me. I had no idea where I was going. I have no recollection of filling out any forms, no recollection of anything, really, except waiting outside the studio, petrified. I played my half-baked Mozart sonata for three European conservatory-trained musicians. After I had played, they asked me (with barely concealed disdain) who had suggested that I come to audition. I was totally terrified, and frankly I don’t remember my answer. The two Germans then raked me over the coals for awhile with a bunch of technical questions while the British one sat quietly and said nothing.

Needless to say, I was rejected. I was devastated. When I got the official rejection letter from the music school, I left it lying on the table where my parents would find it, because I couldn’t tell them. My Dad found it, and the only thing he said to me was “I’m disappointed.” I wanted to die. I don’t remember my mother’s reaction, for some reason.

However, the University itself had accepted me with flags flying, because I was one of three valedictorians of my class. It was too late to re-activate my applications to the two small liberal arts schools to which I had applied, and anyhow, my parents had agreed to pay for the large state school, so that’s where I was going, music major or not. I went to the art department (I had taken 4 years of art in high school as well, and was pretty good), but they wouldn’t even look at a portfolio because the “deadline was past.” Thinking that perhaps I could get involved in some of the musical activities if I was at least a Fine Arts major, I declared as a theater major. This was, of course, daft.

Freshman orientation was hot, humid, and miserable. Back in those days, one’s parent dropped one off at Freshman orientation and said “See ya.” (I am still astounded by the current generation, who show up to auditions and orientations with their family and all sets of grandparents and then use their umbilical cell phones through the entirety of college. My theory is that their parents—my generation—still remember going into that freshman orientation all by themselves feeling as though they were walking into Mordor, and they don’t want their kids to experience that, so the pendulum has swung the other way.) At the initial meeting, they herded all the new College of Arts and Sciences kids into a huge auditorium, where some stuffed shirt gave us a speech that began with the sentence “If there’s anyone in this room who wants to get a job when they finish school, I suggest you leave this room immediately and go over to the next building where Computer Science is meeting.” And a warm welcome to you too, asshole.

On a brighter note, with my academic record, I was instantly accepted into the Honors College. At this particular school, acceptance into the Honors College meant that all the University’s core requirements were waived – you only had to take the courses required by your major department, and all the rest were electives. I was in hog heaven. Being a jaded old college professor now, it’s easy to forget how exciting a college course catalog can be for a freshman from Podunk High. I instantly signed up for two junior/senior level courses: Shakespeare and a course in Arthurian Legend, in addition to two introductory theater courses and probably something else that I don’t recall.

And then it was Fall semester. Within the first two weeks it became obvious that Theater was probably not my future. No surprise - my acting career had been limited to the chorus of the HMS Pinafore in 5th grade, a stage play in the 7th grade which I do not remember, and the senior show at my high school, in which I played Lois Lane and got inadvertently punched in the face during a rehearsal by Eddie Waskiewicz, who was playing Batman. One of our first assignments was to choose our favorite poem and deliver it from memory to the class. I thought it would be hilarious to do John Lennon’s poem “The Fat Budgie.” After all, everyone likes comedy, right? And I had been nearly thrown out of high school study hall one day for having uncontrolled hysterics while reading In His Own Write.

I have a little Budgie
He is my very pal
I take him walks in Britain
I hope I always shall

My Budgie’s name is Jeffrey
My Grandad’s name’s the same
I named him after Grandad
Who had a feathered brain.

He’s getting very fat you know
From eating far too much
If he gets any fatter
He’ll have to wear a crutch…

…So that’s my budgie Jeffrey
Fat and yellow too
I love him more than Daddy
And I’m only 32.

The professor did not share my sense of humor. She looked at me and said, in a tone dripping with sarcasm, “And THAT…is your favorite poem?” They were obviously not looking for comic actors. In my other theater class I was assigned a film review, at which point I raised my hand and asked how I, a freshman, could possibly know enough about film or theater to actually think I could write a review of a bunch of professionals (obviously a question over which most critics do not lose sleep.) I don’t remember the professor’s answer, but he also was not amused.

About a month into this travesty I discovered that the music department was open to the idea of letting students re-audition on another instrument if they had not passed the first time. I jumped at this chance and decided to audition on voice. Since all my paperwork indicated that I intended to be a theory major, they were perplexed (it had been a long time since the Middle Ages, when that wouldn’t have seemed the slightest bit strange.) I was sent to meet with a music professor who also had some role in undergraduate admissions. He asked me why I wanted to audition on voice, then asked me what other instruments I played. When I said “guitar,” made a face and said “And how well do you play that – as well as you play the piano?” I don’t remember what I said in reply (I do remember what I was thinking, which was something like “Thanks a lot, dickhead.”) He agreed to let me audition—right then and there, with no preparation at all; just sent me packing off to the building where the vocal studios were.

So I sang for the three voice faculty. I had nothing prepared – I had never done a vocal audition in my life and had no idea what was expected or what was required. They were kind, but bewildered by this, until one of them – I will never forget – decided to improvise and just said to me, “Do you know the old song “Drink to me Only With Thine Eyes?” Yes, I did (ironically, because I had played the freaking thing on the now-highly-suspect piano.) They had the lyrics there in a book, so I sang it. They then put some music in front of me to test my reading; I read it through at first sight. They tested my ears with some pitch matching and other exercises; I nailed them all. They did not make fun of me; in fact one of them said that I had the ‘perfect name for a singer.’ (That would not be Dharmonia, but my actual name, which is about as Italian as you can get without turning into a cannoli.)

They then sent me chugging back to the fire-breathing dragon who had asked me if I played the guitar “as well as I play the piano.” Unbeknownst to me, while I was auditioning, they had somehow gotten my high school choral teacher on the phone. Mr Wrinn, may he rest in eternal peace and happiness, had pointedly asked this dragon if he was aware of the fact that I was one of the valedictorians of my class, the “class musician,” a songwriter who had already taken private theory lessons for two years, and simply was unfortunate enough to be a person who had learned most of her music entirely by ear and just needed a chance to be given some training. With that, and the fact that the three voice professors had actually accepted me, this paragon of tact informed me that they had “decided to give me a chance.”

And that is how I became a music major at a large state school. They then gave me the theory placement test, which I aced except for the section on medieval modes, since I had never had that before. Life can be ironic.


Stay tuned for Installment 2.