Lindsay Martin wants to dance.

While other dance majors are preparing to go to graduate school or become teachers and choreographers, Martin, a Communication senior and dance major, said she wants to perform for a living.

“Right now, it’s up in the air as to what I will end up doing next year,” Martin said. “This year I have been going to workshops, seminars and auditions for dance companies and musicals to see what happens. The plan is to hopefully get a job somewhere and continue dancing.”

Although many of her peers are going on interviews and sending out resumes, students whose majors focus on performance are torn between continuing their studies in graduate school or trying to find a job performing.

“It is a physically demanding and limiting career because you only have the strength and ability to do it for so long,” Martin said. “My backup plan would be to stay in Chicago, get a sort of temporary job like waiting tables or teaching dance and then keep going on auditions.”

She said that although her chosen career path is dancing, other students can pursue any other career that interests them. Because the dance program is a smaller program within a larger liberal arts school, dance students can pair their studies with another discipline to create a more focused major. Students who want to write about dancing can major in English, and those interested in teaching can double major in education.

Joseph Mills, director of the dance program at Northwestern, said graduates go on to a variety of careers, depending on what their interests are. Many join dance companies locally or across the country, while others teach dance or become choreographers.

“Careers are all across the board,” Mills said. “Our program is designed to launch students into whatever area of dance they are interested in.”

He said that dance students meet with advisors throughout their time at NU to choose classes and, ultimately, a career path.

“Typically, it is not until towards the end of sophomore year that they begin finding their voice as a dancer and really start to focus on what they want,” Mills said.

While dance majors receive advising and get job advice from the dance department, the School of Music has its own Career Services office to help students plan their futures.

“What’s great about musicians is that they are able to use and enjoy their music even if they are not employed by it,” said Dorothy Wyandt, head of Career Services for the School of Music. “I hear from all these students who, even if music is not their career, it is still influencing their lives.”

Wyandt said many Music students become teachers, since music education is a big field with many specialties. She said many students are also joining the field of music technology, where graduates can go on to work for video game companies or major software firms like Microsoft.

“Performance majors keep studying their instrument, whether here or in graduate school,” Wyandt said. “Music is not like going into business.”

David Hamilton, a McCormick and Music senior, said other Music seniors he knows plan to attend to graduate school, many to pursue careers in music education.

He said he had always planned to pursue a career in music, but problems with inter-school advising did not make his decision an easy one.

“The music people assume you are going into music, and the engineering people assume you are going into engineering,” he said. “There’s not a lot of help if you’re not sure.”

Hamilton plans to attend graduate school next year to continue studying music.

“I want to go into film scoring,” Hamilton said. “So that’s what I’ll be studying at grad school. It’s what I have always wanted – engineering was just a back up.”

Reach Aliza Appelbaum at [email protected].