From Classrooms to Boardrooms: How This WAAPA Course Prepares You for the Arts & Cultural Industry

Always wanted to work behind-the-scenes of festivals, theatre, museums and more?

This article is presented in partnership with WAAPA.

Allysha Sherrington had originally planned to study a fine arts degree straight out of high school but after realising she wanted to keep her artistic talents as more of a personal interest, she began looking into degrees offered by Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA). She then came across the Bachelor of Arts degree in Arts and Cultural Management.

Now in her third year, she spoke to Student Edge about the importance of this degree and how it prepared her for the creative industry.

Through her degree she’s even nabbed a job at theatre company, Encounter Theatre as the Operations and Digital Coordinator.

In this course, you study all aspects of art management. This includes communications, marketing, law, finance, project management and production to arts criticism and cultural policy. With a degree like this you can work in theatre and dance companies, arts venues, galleries, museums, concerts, festivals and much more.

Allysha decided she wanted to work from within an organisation and use her skills to be able to help artists. She spoke about how she was initially interested in studying this course that included a part of the arts industry called the GLAM sector (GLAM means galleries, libraries, archives and museums). While studying at WAAPA, she started to go into the performing arts sector and found a passion in helping artists thrive.

“I love the role of being able to help other people who are artists have that space and the kind of opportunities to be able to show their work.

“I find that really rewarding so that's kind of, I think after having this placement and being at the uni this will be my job forever - I know I'm young, but I love it a lot.”

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The behind-the-scenes of the arts industries is crucial to making productions, events, exhibitions, performances and more happen by getting and maintaining funding from donors and grants from the government.

Allysha told Student Edge this degree has offered her a mix of unique skills, combining creativity and business.

“You have to be a bit of a translator between the donors, government, people like that providing funds and with the creatives to convince them this is something worth investing in and the importance of it.”

She says that while the hardest part of working in the creative industry is getting your foot in the door, WAAPA is a great place to study because it has those connections already and the industry has trust in WAAPA as a good training institution.

Plus heaps of internship and practical opportunities.

While completing her work placement through WAAPA, Allysha said that there’s a sense of community.

“The arts managers, not always seen but always doing a lot of work,” she said.

“These people are really generous with their knowledge sharing and you get to meet a lot of people you wouldn’t otherwise get to meet."

Plus, studying Arts and Cultural Management opens the pathway to working in so many different careers like any sort of management position, creative positions, public relations, marketing, social enterprise, film, television and broadcasting, museum curation and more.

“So, all your sort of standard kind of corporate positions, but the arts industry is a really unique one and has a lot of different skills that I think you need to be able to work there.”

Network with people who work in the industry you’re interested in.

Studying at WAAPA and going on to working at Encounter Theatre has gone hand in hand for Allysha as she’s been able to combine her skills.

“The uni has helped me develop the skills to be able to work for Encounter and then Encounter has also taught me those little nuances of how things actually work which has helped with uni as well.

“There are so many things unique to the arts industry that you don’t get in other industries doing the same job, whether it’s marketing or funding or whatever.”

She says she has had amazing, hands-on lecturers at WAAPA who teach with the experience they have from that workplace.

Better yet she feels supported, knowing she has mentors and she’s not going in on her own, trying to figure things out.

“Arts and Cultural Management is a super practical degree and as well because you learn so many areas of like marketing, accounting, finance.

“If you decide it's not for you, you have all this other experience to go into other industries.”

If you’re interested in learning more about the Arts and Cultural industry, working with creatives and bridging those gaps for funding and planning the arts, check out the course through the WAAPA website.