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IU Student To Graduate With A Degree In Stand-Up Comedy

The Individualized Major Program at Indiana University, which famously led to an "enigmatology" degree for New York Times crossword puzzle editor Will Shortz, will soon lead to another first for the school-a degree in stand-up comedy.

Rob Sherrell is the IU senior getting the degree. And he says it was a tough sell-to both himself and his mother-because he started out with plans to go to law school.

"There was a point where I realized that if I'm not doing what I love, I'm wasting my time here in college. I'm wasting my time and wasting my money," Sherrell says.

Sherrell, like others in the program, worked to build his curriculum around courses already offered at the school. His schedule runs the gamut, from theater, psychology, anthropology and sociology to the general course requirements all students in the College of Arts and Sciences must meet.

Similar comedy degrees have been created by a handful of individuals around the country, but the idea may be catching on. This fall Emerson College in Boston will offer the new Bachelor of Fine Arts in Comedic Arts-a largely untapped field for big universities.

But despite the vindication that came with that news, Sherrell says the doubt and disrespect he occasionally gets from others remains one of his biggest motivators.

"To the people that think I won't be successful and that I'm wasting my time and made a huge mistake, you know, creating my major, I will prove them wrong in every way possible," Sherrell says. "And I am confident in that."

Placing comedy in the same academic realm as other forms of art-like acting, poetry, and music-is something Sherrell says has been a long time coming.

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