Brower Brothers Make the Leap With Semester in LA
Wyatt (left) and Wrett Brower. Photo courtesy of the Wyatt and Wrett Brower. 
The twins in their younger days. Photo courtesy of Wrett and Wyatt Brower.At home on their peach farm in upstate New York, twins Wyatt and Wrett Brower looked for possible colleges. Wyatt always loved comedy, so he typed in a search for a school where he could study the art.
Up popped Columbia College Chicago, a school half a country away in a city he’d never visited. But the more they looked at what Columbia had to offer, the more both brothers realized it checked all the boxes they wanted in a school that would nurture their creative ambitions.
Wrett and Wyatt then took the first of many leaps of faith that would come to define their college careers. Thanks to a fee waiver, they applied to Columbia without telling their mom.
The gamble paid off. They were accepted, received a haul of scholarships, told their mom, and made a visit to one of the college’s admitted student days, where it was clear that Columbia was the school for them.
Since that point, the pair have continued to take chances. They’ve explored majors, career paths, and more, all while exploring their developing talents and creating together like they have since childhood.
Wyatt, the older and self-proclaimed handsome one, is now a Creative Writing major after coming in as an Acting major. Wrett, the younger twin, is TV producing and entrepreneurship in the Cinema and Television Arts departmentwith dreams of going to law schools.
“They're kind of symbiotic, our majors,” Wyatt says. “We're both a team when it comes to the creative stuff. But I'm majoring in more of a creative side and he's majoring in more of a business side. So, we're filling in pieces of the puzzle that, had we both majored in the same thing, we might not have known or seen before.”
The brothers have only overlapped in a handful of classes but are back together this semester in Los Angeles.
The Semester in LA program lets students live, study, and intern in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles without missing a beat toward graduation. When Wrett and Wyatt heard about the program early in their journey at Columbia, they knew it was for them.
So, like they had done three years prior when they came to Chicago, the twins packed up and moved across the country for their final semester. It’s proving to be another leap of faith that’s working out.
“We're having a blast out here,” Wrett says. “It's even better than I was anticipating, honestly.”
As a part of Semester in LA, they are taking classes and learning from industry professionals. Both are working internships at Luber Roklin Entertainment, a management company, something neither could have imagined growing up.
“Growing up where we did, being at a talent management office was not something that you could just pop into and see what it's like,” Wyatt says. “Getting the opportunity to see how these sort of places operate, how they look for people they're going to represent. That's going to help in both a talent way, if you want to get yourself represented or if you want to work in representation.”
Wrett is also interning at a law firm where he has previously been externing. Wyatt is taking full advantage of the LA standup comedy scene, doing sets three or four times a week.
“I bumped into a producer the other day,” Wrett says. “You just mix it up with a lot more of those types of people in the industry. And with Wyatt doing the standup thing, and we go to a lot of clubs where there's a lot of bigger-name people that are testing out their material and stuff. And since Wyatt is a comic, he can talk to them.”
The brothers loved their time to try things out and take chances in Chicago but are enjoying being at the entertainment industry’s center.
“Chicago is awesome,” Wyatt says. “But the hub of all of it really does seem to be here. And it's really warm, so that's cool too.”
Sitting in their sunny Los Angeles apartment, reflecting on all the chances and risks they’ve taken over the past few years, Wyatt encourages current and future students to explore Chicago and all it has to offer, and Wrett says they should be sure to keep an open mind and not pigeonhole themselves creatively.
However, they both agreed on their biggest words of wisdom.
“Definitely prioritize Semester in LA.”