Adieu, Columbia...

It's been a crazy couple of weeks since, but on May 20th I graduated from Columbia University's School of the Arts with a Master of Fine Arts degree. Here's some selfie evidence of me in Columbia Blue:

The slight look of terror in my eyes is the realization that my student loans are about to become all too real.

When I was a teenager, I dreamed of going to Columbia: getting an education at one of the world's top universities -- in New York City, no less -- was the path I imagined for myself. Instead, I got rejected from Columbia (and several conservatory programs) and wound up at a very different school getting a very different kind of education, something I'm very thankful for. When I was about to graduate from college and had decided that an MFA was my next step, I was excited by the fact that Columbia's program seemed like the perfect fit for me. I applied to a few schools, including Columbia, and got rejected once again. Once again, though, it was a stroke of good fortune: I got to move into Boston proper for the first time in my life, reconnecting with my city and getting to get to know myself better as an artist and a person. I wouldn't trade that year for anything. When it came time to reapply to schools, Columbia was once again on my list, now firmly at the top, and this time I got in. It was the best thing that's ever happened to me as an actor, and it would take a lot more time and space than I have here to elucidate just how much it's meant to me over the last three years to be a part of this family.

So I wound up where I wanted to go, just not the way I thought I would get there, and in a position a thousand times better than the one I dreamed at first. And the experience of dusting off and trying again was in many ways the most important one of all, and I treasure it as much as I treasure the things I've learned from my amazing teachers and classmates. An artist needs to be able to take a few punches from the world, and I'm glad that was a part of my educational journey.

So thank you, Columbia, for being three years of heaven (and hell) and for this feeling of preparedness I have as I take the next step.