Arts education CAN lead to a prosperous career
At MHC, I majored in Dance and minored in Film, now I run a videography business in California.
Major: Dance, Film Studies minor
Concentration: Choreography and Performance
Employer: Loren Robertson Productions
At MHC, I majored in Dance and minored in Film. Now I run a videography business in California based in documentation and promotion of the performing arts, a beautiful blend of my college studies. Though I no longer perform myself, I am a very embodied videographer and person, which I very much attribute to my time at Mount Holyoke and the Five Colleges, and is one of my most valued aspects of myself. It's something that has guided me through every life challenge - being fully in my body. I will always be a dancer!
Thanks to MHC's funding opportunities for summer internships, I was able to do two very formative internships - one at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival as a video intern, where I became a true technician, and one in California, where I created a video editing internship with a few organizations in Berkeley. Both of these summers led me to start my own business in San Francisco after graduating.
During my time at Mount Holyoke, I put a lot of effort in making a case for the arts and the rigor of arts education. A lot of my peers based in math and the sciences, not necessarily explicitly, considered my path to be less important and/or useful. However, I am one of the few students I know of where what I do now with my life and what I was studying in college are truly in alignment.
I not only gained relevant technical skills and a very well-round liberal arts education, moreover, I built a level of confidence and resourcefulness at Mount Holyoke that has carried over into how I am in the world today.
About Loren Robertson '06: Robertson is owner and director of Loren Robertson Productions, a California-based video production business that works with performance venues, schools, presenting organizations, and individual performing artists and companies of all kinds who struggle with professional framing and preservation of the events and shows they produce, and who would like to continually increase their potential for future funding, recognition and support.