With more than seven different choirs students can participate in, it is evident that participating in performing arts is more popular in college than it was in middle school and high school.
One student set out to find the reason behind this and the effects of participating in the performing arts.
For her 12th-grade English class, Hannah O’Brien, freshman in communications disorders, researched and studied boys in the South and their participation in choir. She found that participating in the arts has nearly all positive effects on students.
Before her research, O’Brien thought boys would shy away from choir and the performing arts because of the perception that sports are cooler than choir.
And she was right when it came to middle school-aged boys because of developmental setbacks.
However, she found a change with the high school-aged guys after they had gone through puberty, and the effects were astounding.
O’Brien said the research found that people who participated in the arts often held themselves to a higher standard, while also improving their teamwork ability.
O’Brien also found that typically GPAs go up a substantial amount, and students’ interaction with others improved drastically.
At her high school, just like many others across the country, taking a fine art is a requirement.
O’Brien found the majority of the students in choir were kids who got involved with the program simply because they had to.
However, she said the requirement often ended with success.
O’Brien said two of her friends who would not have been able to afford college were offered the chance to go to community college on a choir scholarship.
“I guess that’s a major benefit they got from it,” O’Brien said. “But through that process, they improved a lot as far as their work ethic in other classes.”
William Powell, director of choral activity, said he can certainly see where O’Brien’s research is accurate because the majority of the Auburn choir members have high GPAs.
When it comes to self-accountability, Powell said he certainly believes participating in the performing arts, such as choir, can increase such characteristics as he sees it happen with students every day.
In the end, O’Brien concluded that participating in choir, a band or in music allows for self-improvement.
“That spills over into other parts of your life, and you don’t even really notice that you’re just constantly trying to achieve better than you did the last time,” O’Brien said.
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