4.2.2. The First Year After Graduation Can Be Decisive The insights into the first year after graduation have been particularly revealing. LAMDA is well aware that this can feel like a ‘cliff-edge’ to students, who can feel vulnerable after the safety of their time at LAMDA. For acting students, this is further complicated by the changing dynamics of the cohort, who become divided between those who have secured agents and are getting auditions, and those who have not. It was described to us as a “divisive” year, with embarrassment from both sides and discomfort with the level of competition that they faced. The irony is that just at the time when they needed the support of their classmates more than ever, they found that in many cases, it rapidly disappeared. From the stories we were told, the experience of this first year will determine whether graduates remain in the industry or take an alternative route.
4.2.3 Financial Constraints Exist Not surprisingly, many graduates make early career choices based on their financial circumstances. These included location – leaving London to return to the parental home, for example – and accepting non-creative jobs for the security of income, even if this meant struggling to find the time to prepare adequately for auditions or industry interviews. We intentionally spoke to alumni who had been active in some way in creating their own work since graduation, so they are unlikely to be representative of the wider group. We found that those people who had previous industry experience before joining LAMDA were particularly open to creating their own work from the start, whereas it was sometimes less deliberate for others.
In most cases, the graduates had started to create their own work for one of the following reasons: 1.
as a way to increase employability and chances of securing other paid work; either by promoting themselves or to further develop their skills.
2.
for the creative satisfaction, because the type of work they wanted to do either didn’t exist, or wasn’t accessible or available to them at the time.
However, it seems that graduates rarely made their own work with the primary intention of creating a commercial success. This applies even to those who have experienced subsequent financial security from their ventures.
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