Comparing Expectations and Experience of Graduating Students at the Highly Touted USC School of Cinematic Arts
FOREWORD:
The University of Southern California’s “School of Cinematic Arts” (colloquially referred to as SCA) is widely touted by the school’s marketing as the top film school worldwide (a statistic disputed by The Hollywood Reporter in every annual ranking since 2019). The school makes plain its vast network of successful alumni, its industry access, and top-notch multi-billion-dollar facilities that students get to enjoy.
Given the prestige and marketing of the school, I interviewed three groups of people to talk about their reflections on their film school experience, presenting the interview in hour-long podcast format.
In the first group, only men were interviewed: two transfer students (who joined in Junior year) and one who had been at the school since Freshman year. They were Hyurk-Ju Enoch Lee, Ben Rana, and Mason Woodard, respectively.
In the second group, only women were interviewed, all of whom had attended the SCA since their Freshman year: Lily Riccio, Arianna Garcia, and Liviya “Livi” Katz.
The final interview was to be conducted one-on-one with the Dean of the School. However, after avoiding a reply for two weeks, I was finally told that the Dean does not accept interview requests as a blanket policy. Thus, the alternative aim was to interview the head of USC’s capstone project: Brenda Goodman. The interview questions would have to pivot to focus more on what Brenda believes needs to be changed at the SCA across the four-year curriculum, including in classes that she does not lead, and whether any of the student feedback can be considered for the USC capstone project class next semester.
The aim of this project would be to compare the expectations that production students may have of the school prior to joining — based upon the school’s marketing and reputation — and compare it to the reality of their experience. Should student experiences relative to their expectations be negative, the issues are then to be presented to Brenda Goodman, who can use it to help enact curriculum change, or at least change in the capstone project class (formerly, the hope was to present findings to the Dean of the school).
Throughout the podcast, students will frequently refer to specific class numbers, chiefly “CTPR-480” (also known as “480”) and “CTPR-486” (also known as “486”) — both versions of USC’s capstone project class. Students may also refer to the “SA” positions of professors — referring to the Student Assistant of a specific professor.
PODCAST EPISODE 1:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GlIwQ9xYUx6aTA593AOyDmAppS_XE2Zf/view?usp=sharing
This podcast episode, comprised of the male group, was particularly interesting because it felt as though students each had different qualms with film school, but none had felt completely satisfied. Indeed, Mason — who had been at the school longest — shared my expected sentiment that the classes within the film school are repetitive, and thus the time spent at USC is largely used inefficiently. The transfer students did not feel this, instead finding their learning to be rather rushed, because much of their transfer credit coursework from other institutions was not credit, and thus much of their coursework at USC was wasted taking identical classes to fulfill already once-completed general education requirements. In both cases, however, despite repetitive classes, the students felt that they lacked the desired relevant experience toward their career goals (be it directing, camera department work, or otherwise). This is a sentiment that I certainly believed would arise and has been a complaint of faculty within the curriculum too. It cannot help but raise the question: who is this program catered to? If students feel they are not learning enough about the relevant skills needed to pursue their career goals, and instead feel that they lose so much time working on irrelevant material (be it repeat transfer credit classes, or classes with the film school being too similar to one another), how are they supposed to feel as though they are set up for a career after graduation.
Moreover, this episode brought up the interesting tension of the “artists” versus the “student”, in which SCA students must operate. The boys all agreed that their creative individualism was stifled by the requirements of their film assignments (be it strict running times on their projects, the equipment students have access to, or — in Hyurk-Ju’s case, the subject matter of the assignment itself). This point fascinated me because sentiment was already expressed that students do not get enough relevant experience towards their goals. Thus, if the limited experience they do get does not enable their artistic expression, one cannot help but think that the SCA leans more on generating positive but standardized “academic” work, but not highly creative work. Perhaps this is a function of the film school’s legal function, as the school has ownership of all student projects (and thus determines any future distribution of student films), and so standardizing film projects helps generate more “commercially safe” but perhaps less individualistically creative work. Though it makes perfect sense, it was not a point I had considered before and thus was a welcome finding from my research.
PODCAST EPISODE 2:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Muw4QmXbJwW_blCxFKGzDrPUvbSw2hUB/view?usp=share_link
To my pleasant surprise, the second podcast episode emphasized differing discussion points. Here, the women focused far more on the discrepancy between the film school as an industry institution, and the film school as an academic institution. All three women, particularly Arianna, believed that the USC “name” had helped her achieve steps towards their goals by advancing their internship applications. In this sense, the fact that a student had attended the SCA benefits their resume in job applications enormously. All three women initially remarked that the enjoyed their classes — and the people they are fortunate to take their classes with — but as the podcast went on, and more time was given towards reflection on their experience, it became plain that all three took many issues with the quality of their education. It can also be argued that even if the classes themselves left plenty to be desired, the SCA’s name does plenty to help students towards their career goals, particularly if their experiences in internships altered their career paths, as they did for Arianna and Lily. This was also unexpected for me, as I did not have a career-altering realization after the internships that I had completed. However, I do strongly recognize the ‘clout’ that having the USC name on a resume may hold in applying for a job, even if students may not always feel that they have been taught the necessary skills to match their job.
Interestingly, Arianna and Lily took issue with the sentiment expressed by the students from podcast episode 1. For the podcast featuring male guests — all guests had expressed interest in becoming a director, be it directly after college or — in Mason’s case — a decade or two down the line. Arianna and Lily felt as though the school catered too much to those who wanted to be directors, rather than their career goals: music video creation and animation producing, respectively. They remark that they have had to learn the skills to pursue their career goals outside of school — be it online or at internships. Livi took strong issue with Arianna and Lily’s opinions on support for aspiring directors, citing how directing is only taught as a skill in the final year of the curriculum, a semester or two after students had completed their “junior thesis” (for all but four students, the final opportunity to direct a film at USC). Thus, the work on a student’s portfolio would not reflect any of the actual learning they may have done in the directing “practicum”, the only formal opportunity to learn the most desired skill. I had expected all of the answers to align more with Livi’s point of view rather than Arianna and Lily’s.
However, Arianna and Lily both mentioned that the inadequacies of the classes had led them to pivot their goals from writing and directing their own live-action feature films to pursuing new goals altogether. In this sense, their takeaways from the film school’s education correlate with the reservations held by students in Episode 1.
PODCAST EPISODE 3:
As mentioned, the initial aim of this research piece was to be able to gather shared common experiences of students at the film school and present my findings to an authority within the SCA who has the power to enact positive change.
Initially, the hope was to be able to interview the Dean of the School: Elizabeth Daley. Daley’s assistant had initially told me that they would “get back to me” regarding a possible thirty-minute interview. When following up, I was then told that Daley “does not do that” for students out of “fairness”.
With Dean Daley inaccessible to students, I then chose to substitute her interview with Brenda Goodman — the lead professor of the most popular USC capstone project class (CTPR 480), and a professor of mine this semester. Goodman did not reply to me about an interview until three days before this project was due. When I offered a time slot, she missed it and sent an apology email the next day informing me that she had been “caught up with teaching at school”. When I offered an alternative on Saturday, the day before this research project was due, she informed me that she could not make it as she was “driving all day” and, again, apologized that it “did not work out”.
Prior to this research project, I always understood that interviewing a person who exerts authority over the SCA curriculum would be difficult — as it may place them under scrutiny — but I did not believe that several attempts would be thwarted. I had hoped that, at the very least, my own Professor — with whom I hold a strong professional relationship — would be able to give me thirty minutes of her time, and was both surprised and disappointed that she did not manage to do so.
This inability to communicate with the “higher-ups” at the school points to a wider issue. It is all well and good that students can express opinions on the education that their families are investing over $350,000 for, but if their feedback cannot be used to promote tangible change then there is little point — beyond therapy — in gathering this research. A common criticism of the film school is its bureaucracy and lack of support. Not only is the school’s professional and academic structure fiercely bureaucratic, but it deliberately prevents students from obtaining transparency over their program. I have the findings here, recorded, ready to present in a constructive manner, and am not allowed to do so. At the same time — as Mason pointed out — students do not necessarily know the specifics of the program they are about to enter until they are on the inside: once again, relaying to the school’s lack of transparency. Once on the inside, they appear uniformly disappointed by the classes that they are taking.
TAKEAWAYS:
My research on the SCA experience garnered some welcome surprises. I welcomed the discrepancy among students over the school’s ability to teach directing, as well as a newfound recognition for the power of the school’s name on resumes. It was also delightful to hear that every student interviewed highlighted that one of their favorite aspects of the school was their fellow student, with whom they felt a sense of genuine friendship and not competition. The phrase “their success will be our success” — expressed by Livi — comes to mind, and it is true. The school also appears to be a strong addition to one’s resume, which benefits them in future job hunts, even if students feel ill-equipped to take on the tasks of the job once hired (as highlighted by their criticism of the classes themselves). Perhaps the industry, much like potential applicants to the school, places a high premium on the school’s prestige — a testament to the SCA’s ability to self-promote.
However, there are some alarming common reservations among the student body. Not only does the school’s wasteful curriculum render students to feel unfit to confront the industry, some pupils even changing their career goals because of this, but students feel that there is a huge lack of transparency between themselves and the powers-that-be at the school over the education they are set to receive. For the exorbitant marketing of the school’s success, and the already exceedingly high and ever-increasing tuition fees, this is simply wrong. When purchasing any product, as one does with a college education, it is important to know what the product is that one is purchasing. For more expensive purchases, invoices are often even provided reflecting this. At USC however, not only do simply feel inadequately informed about the curriculum — and possess little access to those who influence the curriculum — but far more alarmingly, my research leads me to conclude that students uniformly feel undereducated due to the school wasteful and repetitive curriculum that is not tailored to any one’s career goals. For all the clout and opportunity that the name of the institution may help provide, USC’s School of Cinematic Arts cannot pose itself as the world’s top film “school”, if students unanimously feel undereducated.
