How much of a risk is it to leave college, and pursue a acting career ?

I don’t know the statistics of, sigh, a everyday person leaving college to pursue, sigh, a acting career.
We only hear about the ones who are successful and have no idea how many are not.
I’m guessing that your major is not English, so it may not make any difference. It probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to have an alternate plan as a back up, or maybe a plan to return after a given period of time…

Huge risk. May as well just stay in school, get a degree in performing arts, and then pursue acting.

A before a consonant, an before a vowel: an acting career; an everyday person – I’d stick around and study grammar a bit more before leaving college.

Now, now. Let’s be nice.

@zenele I’m not in college.

One thing about pursuing acting, is to ensure regular employment as much as possible. Don’t quite your day job! But make sure it’s a job with free time available to take auditions.

Risk is relative…

If you’ve got a GREAT head shot and a hungry agent, then you’re ahead of the game.

Demo Reel, Demo Reel, Demo Reel! Did I say Demo Reel?

Update your head shot as often as possible. Give your agent a reason to call the clients again.

Supplement a budding acting career by pursuing commercial stills for advertising too. Many actors do this, and the stills photographers are shooting more and more video these days with the new cameras. Clients are asking us for both.

Forget studying acting in school unless you need experience with plays. Otherwise best to get hooked up with a couple of good coaches instead of classes. NO MODELING SCHOOL!!! Just look on Craigslist for Acting Coaches and take private lessons. They are also a great resource to find out what’s going on in your local market and many of them are good agents too.

Do your best to stay in school. But instead of taking acting, take personal business classes. The most successful model/actors are the ones who treat themselves like a product for sale and handle their affairs in a professional business manner.

Good Luck… suckah!

Phew.

Stop. in Spanish thats Alto. stay where you are raise your hands. you are about to be handcuffed to your college.

Never swap a collega education on a whim in Hollywood. its a gamble that you will not win. i say this from experience with my niece. she left college for the glamor and show of Hollywood and its the worst possible move she could have made. she is still there, but not in the movies. this is all i will say about my niece.

The percentage of successful people that actually made it in Hollywood is very slim. there are things you would have to do with your body that you do not want to do, but will do if you think it will give you an edge. it will not.

I had rather graduate from college with a shingle, that walk out of a Hollywood theatre with a used theatre ticket. one outshines the other 1,000 to 1.

@john65pennington What things with your body?

I almost hate to interrupt the grammar lessons with an actual answer :)

How big a risk is it? It depends on your definition of success and what you want out of life.

If security is important to you, leaving college could be a catastrophic mistake. There is little if any security in acting. Even for the big names.

If your biggest fear is living a “safe” life through abandoning your dreams then not going for it may be the mistake.

The middle ground may be the way to go. Unless the person is on the cusp of being “too old” for the types of parts that their “look” qualifies them for then why not do both?

I’d imagine the odds aren’t that great. I have a friend that went out to LA after college. She does some acting, but is not “famous”. If your goal is just to act, then that raises the odds a bit, but if your goal is strictly to be “famous”, that lowers the odds a lot. My friend started out acting in plays and then from there got a few small roles in movies. That may change for her one day (I hope it does). She still doesn’t consider herself as being “discovered”. She does have an agent and a SAG card (and also a full time job to foot her bills).

I agree with what @Seaofclouds and other are talking about. If acting is the goal, you can finish college and act anyway. If being famous is your goal, well, I agree, get your grammar polished up and you’ll have a better chance at it. That’s not a nasty thing to say, by the way. It’s a practical thing to say.
But getting famous may be a fool’s errand. To be constantly employed as a performer, you need constant exposure, even if you aren’t aiming for stardom. That takes a lot of work and a lot of profit-sharing. It doesn’t require you to allow predators access to your body, but you may have to have a good answer ready in case some old-school producer approaches the issue.

Fluther is full of pedantic creatures as of late. I reckon it’d make more sense to stay in college and pursue an acting career on the side – during free time and such. If one’s genuinely passionate about acting, they’ll make time where there seems to be none.
There’s a degree to fall back on if the acting doesn’t work out that way.

Most of the actors I know and have known that left college did so because they were cast in a role and couldn’t keep going to school.

Not worth the risk. Degree can help as a fallback, which I’d imagine any struggling actor needs.

Although I feel my music career was sucessful artistically, it was never a successful business for exactly the reasons expressed by @RealEyesRealizeRealLies. While I was in college (music major) I there was a lot of overlap between theater and music. While several of the theater majors I knew, like @andrew‘s acquaintances, were offered roles and dropped out of college, Many more of my friends went on to have successful careers teaching theater. It was a good way to make a living through their art, and still have an occasional opportunity to act, direct, produce, etc.

unless you are independantly supported, don’t

Huge risk. The well known actresses you are referring to are a small minority. Most end up like Penny (character of big bang theory).