If you haven’t yet found yourself standing on a stage, under a spotlight or in front of an audience, it’s time to sign up for an improvisation class. Actors and stand-up comedians spend the majority of their lives doing so, and it is what makes them such vibrant and personable human beings. The benefits of learning how to carry yourself in the oddest scenarios in front of an audience pertain to your average nine-to-fiver and college student just the same. Our personalities and the way we carry ourselves in interactions paint a larger picture of the way others see us. In professional settings and everyday life, we spend so much time navigating interpersonal connections, and our speech plays a huge role in that. With around 75% of people having some level of fear of public speaking, the majority of us can definitely learn something from a class devoted to mitigating that. Improv classes are the perfect, low-stakes way to become a personable speaker by learning to laugh at yourself and bounce off of other people. By decentering ourselves from our conversations and getting out of our own heads, we can become more empathetic. 

So many of us spend our days aiming for perfection in everything we do. Instead of trying to say perfect words, we should all learn to communicate well with others whether or not a conversation goes as planned. Conversations are always two-way streets, but focusing too much on your words can create a self-centered approach to communication. In improv, a majority of a scene depends on how two people listen and respond to one another, and speakers naturally become better at empathetic listening, effectively moving away from hyper-fixating on their own words. As college students, this is especially applicable to our professional lives. For example, take business majors spending days curating a slide deck and memorizing presentations. The difference between a palm-sweating pitch and an engaging presentation is authenticity, not a verbatim delivery of a script. Connecting with an audience using humor establishes a much stronger bond and more credibility than rolling out rehearsed lines, regardless of where a conversation is going. Personability is an indispensable trait in modern society, yet it gets overlooked as we spend more and more time striving for perfection instead. Being the truest version of yourself and letting your instincts guide your speech makes you a more inviting speaker. In improv, nobody is fact-checking you or scribbling over your words with corrections; instead, everyone is simply there for a good time. One of the things that make a good time is humor. 

Think about the funniest person you know. Odds are, one of the things that makes them so great at making you laugh is that they don’t take themselves too seriously. Improv classes offer a plethora of benefits for participants, but the largest transferable skill from this activity is the ability to laugh at yourself. Public speaking and eloquence come with any activity that puts you in the spotlight, but improv’s unique way of pushing the boundaries forces us to move on from our mistakes, before the audience grasps that we faltered in the first place. It is far easier to carry yourself with confidence when you realize that you can laugh at yourself. In the real world, this skill helps you portray yourself realistically to others, making you more relatable. Genuine connections are built on honesty, and improv gives us a level of vulnerability to make those relationships meaningful. 

An element of teamwork is present in many improv performances as well — individuals learn to adapt their ideas to scenes where audience members and other cast members are also contributing to the development of a story. Learning to go with the flow also means learning to incorporate other people’s perspectives into your own. In many improv performances, scene partners need to bounce ideas off of one another to successfully tell a story. They don’t have the luxury of pausing to figure out whose path they will take, so they find a way to get on the same page. In real life, rather than turning someone else’s voice down when we aren’t aligned, we should take a moment and consider how we can include multiple ways of thinking in one project to reach the same final goal. 

I would absolutely consider taking an improv class, now knowing how many facets of my life could benefit from a three-hour introduction to the world of spontaneous speaking. There is a level of charm that comes with a person who finds humor in their imperfections without dwelling on those flaws. Embracing our unique identities makes us much more likable than becoming cookie-cutter copies of one another. The best part about it is that everyone is making everything up as they go. The pressure of remembering lines and portraying a predesigned character is lifted, and all that’s left is you, your imagination and a stage. 

What do you have to lose? Three hours of your life devoted to letting loose with strangers without worrying about school, work or personal issues sounds like the perfect weekend afternoon. Brimming with diversity and culture, New York City offers the perfect setting for you to put yourselves in the shoes of others as you learn about their ways of life. Improv classes bring together groups of people to do just that. Whether it’s a stronger conviction underscoring your words, a better understanding of teamwork or an appreciation for finding the humor in things, you will leave that room fuller, yet somehow much lighter, than when you first walked in. 

Ameya Jain, FCRH ’28, is a psychology major from Los Angeles