Want to Get Started in the Arts? Become a Content Creator

In the age of YouTube stars, Snapchat stories and the Insta-famous, there is so much opportunity for artists to create their own content. Whether you’re into the performing or visual arts, adding “content creator” to your resumé expands your artistic practice from the privacy of your living room into the public sphere. Why content creation? Ryan Hayden, owner of the Los Angeles-based Ideal Talent Agency, says that content creation is key for artists who either lack industry connections or struggle to find success through the more traditional auditioning path. “Creating content is often the best method to getting noticed for ...

5 Reasons to Attend a Historically Black College and University (HBCU)

In high school, one of my classmates advised me to not apply to a Historically Black College and University (HBCU). “It’s not the real world,” he warned. “You’ll be better off at a school like Stanford.” While he chose to attend Stanford, I studied at Pomona College in Claremont, California, and Spelman College, an HBCU in Atlanta, Georgia. (I attended Spelman as a domestic exchange student in the fall of my junior year.) My classmate was partially right, though: HBCUs aren’t representative of “the real world.” Established in the mid- 1800s, they were designed to be better than that world: ...