Dance Sport College

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pygmalion

Well-Known Member
Check this out. I found (by accident in google of course :lol: ) a college which offers Associates, Bachelors, Masters and PhD degrees and dance certifications by distance learning for ballroom dancers. Their stated mission is "to evaluate the ability and dance knowledge of current professional and semi-professional dancers and instructors who desire to earn an online diploma or accredited degree in ballroom dance."

There's a portfolio assessment, and the degree requirements look to be pretty stringent. Anyone have thoughts on this?

[google]dancesportcollege[/google]
 
Well the prices are reasonable if its legit. I guess if we're spending as much on dnace lessons we might as well get something out of it but what do this mean exactly

Some graduates enjoy the benefits of having their degree "legalized or authenticated" by having them "Apostilled." Countries that are Members of the Hague Conference will recognize your degree as being authentic once it is Apostilled. The Apostille is accepted in 59 countries.

Apostillation consists of a notarized document which is attached to your degree, stating that the attached degree document has been fully earned, approved and granted, and the Apostille Document, signed and sealed by the secretary of state or embassy for the attachment of the Apostille.
 
So without that your degree doesn't actually mean anything. Incidently this degree is issued out of west africa.

Hmm I wonder if I need to get my foreign degree "legallized" ( not that it would do men much good but still)
 
Not necessarily, tasche. I couldn't find apostille in any of the unabridged dictionaries on line, so I looked up a legal service that issues apostilles ( in this case, in California), and here's what I found on their FAQ page.

What is an Apostille used for?
Most people within the USA may not even know what an Apostille is. This is because Apostilles are only for international verification of the signature on your document. For use of your document within the USA, an apostille is unnecessary and irrelevent.

It is also important to understand that an Apostille certificate is issued by the California state government for documents which have signed by an Calfornia state official. You cannot request a California Apostille of your documents if your documents have been signed by a government official in Texas for example. You would need to obtain an Texas Apostille from the government of Texas instead.
Click to expand...

So apparently, an apostille is some sort of verification that, while a document was issued somewhere else, it's still valid and in this case, accredited.
 
ah ok so its really jsut something to give an already questionable degree more authenticity. I got my degree from a major university my home country NZ so I shouldn;t need to do any of that smoke and mirrors stuff
 
:lol: :lol: Tell us how you really feel about it! :lol:

Seriously, though. If the school is legit, which could easily be checked, couldn't this be a great opportunity for a lot of dance instructors out there who may have skipped college to get an accredited degree for the work they've done for years? That's actually quite common now. There are many online universities these days, and most of them offer some sort of portfolio assessment option. Not necessarily smoke and mirrors at all.

The only difference here is that what's being assessed is dance experience. Or am I wrong? Is this just another piece of cardboard that will never get taken seriously?
 
well just taking into account that the certificate will say dancesport college it doesn't sound that impressive. An to me the fact that its a portfolio assesment as opposed toa degree that measures and follows your growth. All you gain is the certificate everything else skills etc you already have to ahve. The school doesn't help you develop in anyway
 
Degree/no degree. In this case I really don't see the point. There are some disciplines (primarily academic ones) where a degree matters, but even here this isn't always the case. A there isn't an educational requirement to be a poet laureate, for example. What matters in this case is one's poetry. And this same sort of dynamic strikes me as applicable to dance. If I'm evaluating you as a dancer and/or dance instructor than I'll judge that based on your dancing/teaching, not on some piece of paper.

[Note: this strikes me as a different issue then that of credentialing . . . for which we have a different thread already going! :wink: ]
 
Actually, no, the degree wouldn't say dancesport college. (LOL I read through the whole web site carefully before posting this thread.) The assessment would be done by dancesport college, but the degree would be conferred by St. Regis University, a state accredited University in South Africa.

I guess the reason I started this thread is that I personally know at least twenty experienced dance instructors, only two of whom have a college degree. ( One has an AA, the other a Ph.D.) Just figured it would be interesting to talk about.
 
Oh yeah, and the other thing ... What happens to dance teachers after they quit teaching? For health reasons, burnout or whatever, they move on. So what happens to them if they have no degree of any sort -- lots of experience, but no degree?
 
Hmmm, but after only studying dance, whether or not he or she has a degree that confirms this, would this experience/degree help the ex-dancer make a significant leap into another job market (i.e. database management, medicine, grociery store picketer)?

Unless the ex-dancer has a liberal arts education or diversified during the dance career into other ventures, it seems he or she would be starting practically from scratch.

Hopefully dance teachers consider burnout, health, and injury during the course of their careers.
 
Yup, Porfirio. That's why I posted this thread. I bet a lot of dance teachers will see it, and I hope they'll think about the implications.

Dance as a profession is tough. Physically and mentally tough. And it can't hurt to have a backup plan. A Bachelor's degree in ballroom dance is, at least in my mind, better than no degree at all, if you're suddenly forced to look for a job, because of injury, downsizing (i.e. poor economy) or whatever.
 
I believe the ballroom dance degree from BYU is a hybrid of business and dance. I don't think you can lose with that kind of a program. Maybe an alumnus will post here and tell us about it...
 
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