It’s rare when a student starts college while actively engaging in a full-time career that started when she was three years old. Lauren Herfindahl is one of those rare young women. She has been a professional dancer with the Boston Ballet for most of her life and is now poised to graduate from the Northeastern University College of Professional Studies.
“Lauren is a leader in the classroom, on pace to graduate with high honors in Spring 2022,” Interim Dean of the College of Professional Studies, David Fields says. “Beginning her studies in Fall 2014, Lauren has taken coursework both full time and part time and currently holds a 3.77 GPA. She has made Dean’s List in every term she was eligible while working full time as second soloist for the Boston Ballet.”
Her achievements with the Boston Ballet are public knowledge. Her first performance with the main company was in The Sleeping Beauty when she was 10. She signed her first contract at 15 with Boston Ballet 11 and was awarded the silver medal at the Boston International Ballet Competition Junior Division in 2012. The next year—at the age of 17—she joined the main company.
Lauren’s achievements at Northeastern show her dedication and ambition. The most significant? “I have risen to the challenges and goals I have set for myself to graduate,” she says. “I learned to believe that I can have a second career outside of the dance world. I hope to bring my determination and hard work to my continued education and goal of working in the healthcare field.”
Even with the demands of a full-time career and her college course load, Lauren makes time to volunteer. She has encouraged new company dancers to take courses at NU, and she mentors the younger members of Boston Ballet as well as the highest-level students at Boston Ballet School. She co-hosts informal monthly conversations on topics relevant to their stage and rehearsal work, and answers dancers’ questions when they are struggling with personal or professional issues. “I want to foster a supportive and helpful environment for these budding professionals and stop the culture of intimidation and coldness that I experienced as a young professional.”
Dean Fields describes Lauren as “hard-working, professional, experiential, high-achieving, passionate, highly successful. She has proven to be a disciplined, dedicated worker inside and outside of the classroom…precisely what it means to be a Northeastern University Husky.”
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Hard-working, professional, experiential, high-achieving, passionate, highly successful. She has proven to be a disciplined, dedicated worker inside and outside of the classroom…precisely what it means to be a Northeastern University Husky.”
Dean of the College of Professional Studies, David Fields