Are you considering grad school but feeling unsure about the process, the expectations, or even where to start? The latest episode of Victors in Grad School is a perfect listen for anyone navigating these questions. Host Dr. Christopher Lewis welcomes Shelby Newport, Program Director for the Arts Administration program at the University of Michigan-Flint, for a candid conversation about finding success—and fulfillment—through graduate education.

Shelby’s journey is a relatable one. She takes listeners back to her undergraduate days at Cornell College, where a mix of curiosity and an honest assessment of her skills led her to pursue further education. Recognizing that she needed more specialized training to reach her career goals in costume design, Shelby set her sights on an MFA—a common terminal degree in the arts. Her story of researching programs, attending the nerve-wracking (but rewarding) University and Resident Theater Association (URTA) interviews, and ultimately choosing Purdue for its supportive faculty and fit with her aspirations offers an inside look at the decision-making process for prospective grad students.

A central theme in the episode is that grad school is a journey—often challenging, always transformative, and rarely linear. Shelby opens up about the transition from undergrad to graduate student, emphasizing that the switch isn’t just academic; it’s personal, too. Learning to “dress the part” and step into the role of both student and teacher was part of her process, as was embracing the intense, focused workload that a graduate program demands.

Shelby’s advice for current and prospective students is refreshing in its honesty. She speaks about the importance of being open to change, both in yourself and in your career path. Sometimes, the direction you envision at the start isn’t where you’ll end up—and that’s not only okay, but often leads to unexpected opportunities and growth. Her own path led from regional theater work to a fulfilling career teaching and program direction, and her network—built by seizing opportunities and following her interests—has played a crucial role every step of the way.

For anyone considering grad school or already in the midst of it, this episode is packed with valuable insights. Shelby Newport’s story is a reminder that while the journey may be unpredictable, your openness, effort, and willingness to grow will serve you well. Tune in to hear her story—you’ll walk away inspired and a little more prepared for your own graduate school adventure.

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:01 ]:
Welcome to the Victors in Grad School. Where we have conversations with students, alumni. And experts about what it takes to. Find success in graduate school.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:11 ]:
Welcome back to Victors in Grad School. I'm your host, Dr. Christopher Lewis, Director of Graduate Programs at the University of Michigan, Flint. And I'm really excited that you're back again this week. As always, every week we are on a journey together. As you are looking at graduate school, thinking about graduate school, maybe you've applied to graduate school. No matter where you are, you are truly on a journey, because graduate school is a journey. It takes time, it takes effort, it takes some planning to not only get in, but get through.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:44 ]:
And that's what this podcast is all about. It's to provide you with some of those tools that you need, those tools for your toolbox that will help you to be able to find success and sooner. And that's why every week I bring you different guests with different experiences, people that have gone to graduate school before you to share some of their own experiences and allow for you to be able to learn from the things that they learned along the way as well. This week, we've got another great guest. Shelby Newport is with us, and Shelby is the program director for the Arts Administration Program at the University of Michigan, Flint. And I'm really excited to be able to have her here, to have her talk a little bit about her own experiences and learn from her. Shelby, thanks so much for being here here today.

Shelby Newport [00:01:26 ]:
Yeah, thank you. This is exciting to talk about and remember my journey.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:31 ]:
Well, I'm really excited that you're here today, and it is a journey, and I think one of the things that I would love to do is kind of take you back in time because I know that you did your bachelor's degree at Cornell College and in theater in art, and then at some point during that time during your undergrad, you made a choice that you were going to continue on to get the mfa, and you did go and get an mfa. But bring me back to that point in your thinking and why you chose to go further and to go on.

Shelby Newport [00:02:03 ]:
Yeah, that moment is really a specific moment for me. I mean, I can sort of put myself in the position. I was a work study student in the costume shop at Cornell College and learning skills. But Cornell College is a small, private liberal arts college in Iowa, and our faculty was relatively small, taught me so many things, and it was the best place for me, but I didn't have really specific training in costume design and construction. And so, you know, sitting there doing my Work study job, working on a production, thinking. I think it was basically the, the end of my junior year, my third year in school, I had gone away and worked in the summer at different summer professional companies. Colorado Shakespeare Festival for, for two summers in a RO was thinking about where do I want to move? What is next? What is the job that I want? And knowing that there was going to be a lot of jobs, but what was that next step? And I felt like I didn't have the skills I needed with only my one year left of undergrad to do the job. Like I was leaning towards Chicago and working professionally in theater.

Shelby Newport [00:03:14 ]:
And so I needed more skills. And the mfa, the Master of Fine Arts, is a terminal degree in our arts field and it is a doing degree. So I knew that with intensive three years in a program that I would hopefully leave those three years with more skills than I had at that time. And of course, as it happens, during the journey, you find out other things about yourself and who you know, where you want to go and who you want to be. And I, I gained a lot of different skills that I couldn't have expected. So my path and the job I wanted to do changed during those three years. But I decided that I wanted to go right away and not take time off between undergrad and graduate school now.

Shelby Newport [00:03:53 ]:
And you made the decision to go to Purdue. Purdue University. And there's a lot of MFA programs all across the country. And I'm sure you did some, some review, some research to try to determine for yourself what was the best program for you. Talk to me about that search process and what you had to do to come to that final conclusion of going to Purdue.

Shelby Newport [00:04:16 ]:
Yeah, in the arts we have this, I think, somewhat unique organization called erda. The acronym is University and Resident Theater Association. And that organization run interviews and auditions for MFA programs, among other things, as a, as an organization and association of university programs. And so at that time they ran three interview dates where you went in person in New York, Chicago or San Francisco. You signed up for those and you set up a table, basically a booth for yourself, your portfolio and a board, maybe some samples of your work. And so I selected the New York one and my boyfriend at the time, my husband, now we drove to New York, New York from Iowa with my things and parked my Jetta in New York City and stayed in a fancy hotel, set up my booth and you set up your area, your table. Then you leave for four hours and then you come back and they give you a list of the grad schools that want to interview you. And then you have, I think it was 10 or 15 minutes with each of the school representatives that wanted to meet you.

Shelby Newport [00:05:22 ]:
And then after that, I think you got a piece of paper that said, like, next step interviews with your next tier. And in our field, it's always like, oh, how many IRTA interviews did you get? Oh, how many did you get? And there's probably 40 school representatives at these. And they're the. Mostly the major programs. The really top tier MFA programs like Yale don't go to this. They don't need to recruit in that way. So it's that next tier of major universities. University of Iowa, Purdue, Florida has a great program.

Shelby Newport [00:05:56 ]:
University of North Dakota, Montana. Like, those programs were all there and talking to you. So you're meeting someone, maybe the costume designer, maybe it's another designer, because all the design students are doing this at the same time. And it's a real fast speed dating moment of like, tell me about your program, I'll tell you about myself. Do we click? I don't know, is there chemistry? So I had a few really great ones. I think my number was nine. I think I had nine on my list of people who wanted to talk to me. So that's reasonable, right? And of that 9, 4 sort of showed real interest and, like, felt like a pretty good match.

Shelby Newport [00:06:32 ]:
Purdue was in that and University of Wisconsin, Madison was in that group, and then University o