For Penn State sophomore Sean Thomas, being a college student and a musician means his days are pretty much booked from the moment he wakes up.

Thomas, a Pittsburgh native studying landscape architecture, balances classes, rehearsals, and his music career at Penn State. While landscape architecture is his current major, Thomas has a different career path in mind for after graduation.

“Rock star is number one; that’s the dream. Landscape architecture is the backup,” Thomas said.

Thomas describes his music as indie rock, indie pop, or somewhere in between. He has been making music for most of his life, picking up his first guitar when he was just 6 years old.

He initially learned guitar with a teacher before teaching himself to produce and engineer music. By sixth grade, Thomas had started producing, but he kept his guitar playing and production separate until high school.

Now, Thomas has turned those years of playing and producing into a growing music career.

Balancing that career with being a full-time student isn’t easy, though.

“It’s a lot, but it’s worth it,” Thomas said when asked how he finds time for everything.

His daily routine is to wake up, go to class, go to rehearsal, go to bed, and repeat. Still, Thomas said that he wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Being a student at Penn State hasn’t necessarily changed his relationship with music, but it has given him more opportunities to make music a larger part of his life. One of the biggest parts of that has been finding a community of other musicians and music fanatics on campus.

“The Penn State music group is great,” Thomas said. “The band, love them. They’re awesome. All the music orgs are so cool and I’ve met so many great people here.”

The people he’s met along the way have become one of the best parts of being a musician here on campus.

He’s performed in Movin’ On’s Battle of the Bands, Manny’s, SPA events, and other local venues. However, Movin’ On takes the cake as his favorite, followed closely by his performance at Manny’s. But his list of Penn State stages keeps growing.

This year, Thomas had his eyes on Mojofest, which he performed at on Saturday.

“I was so excited to go this year, and then I got the text and, like, yes, that’s even better,” Thomas said.

As a sophomore still early in the year, Thomas has plenty of time to keep developing his music and performing around State College’s lively venues.

His dreams extend beyond that, though.

“I’d love to,” Thomas said when asked whether he wanted to pursue music after college. “Hopefully I can make that work.”

Thomas is deeply rooted in music, with influences ranging from contemporary indie acts to artists who have a subtler impact. At the top of his list is Flipturn, an indie band, alongside Arcy Drive and Dayglow. He also mentions Jeff Buckley as an inspiration, although Buckley’s influence “doesn’t show right now.”

But his inspiration isn’t limited to well-known musicians, either.

Thomas also noted how much inspiration he gets from his former guitar teacher, who he grew incredibly close to over the years of practice.

As part of Onward State tradition, the sophomore musician was tasked with reflecting on which dinosaur he would choose to be. Thomas couldn’t choose the obvious T. rex answer, and despite the excitement, the “niche but not too crazy” final pick was an allosaurus.

As Thomas keeps figuring out what comes next, his goals remain simple — keep making music, keep performing, and see where it takes him.

However, his final thought wasn’t related to music at all.

“No, ’cause now I’m just thinking about dinosaurs.”

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