Hello, I’m crazy.
OK, not really. Just a little jealous/disappointed . . . and also crazy.
It’s always been my dream to work in the film/TV industry (see username). I planned on going to a college that has a strong film network. California was off the table (too far away), so my top two schools were Wesleyan and NYU.
I got into NYU, but it’s too expensive. Waaaaaay too expensive. And I got rejected from Wesleyan (and the famed ‘Wesleyan Mafia’).
The reason I’m crazy: I got a very generous merit scholarship from Brandeis, a very good school I’m happy and so so grateful to be attending.
But . . . great as Brandeis is, it doesn’t really have the “name” in the film world like Weselyan. (Did I talk about Wesleyan enough yet? Yeah, I really wanted to go there. And like a million people from my school got in. And are talking about it. Constantly. Oh well.)
I guess what I want is for someone to tell me, “Oh, college networking/connections don’t matter!” But I know that’s not true.
But . . . it’s possible to succeed at anything anywhere, right? I just know nothing about the actual workings of the film industry, so I don’t know if this is a minor setback or THE END OF DAYS.
Signed, a CRAZY PERSON.
Well, the people who made Friends went to Brandeis. (Personally, I prefer Seinfeld - incidentally, Seinfeld himself went to a CUNY, and Larry David went to Maryland . . . for a degree in history.)
Look, there’s a lot of people out there in the film world who didn’t go to film school. And even more who didn’t go to Wesleyan. So . . . chill?
(Also: my impractical dream is to be a screenwriter and Brandeis is on my shortlist right now. And I looked at Wes, too. Bdeis actually hosted a talk with Kerry Washington recently, and has a fair amount of film people, so it’s not like it’s purely liberal arts and that’s it.)
I went to film school. A lot of my fellow students changed their majors before we graduated, or went to grad school in something totally different, or worked in the industry for a while and then lost interest and changed careers. Because the thing you think you’re going to love for the rest of your life at 18 doesn’t always turn out to be something that holds your interest all that long. Here’s what I realized… what really drew me to film was my love of storytelling. But there are all kinds of careers that utilize that skill. Trial lawyers tell stories. So do teachers, and politicians, and journalists, and novelists, and advertisers, and CEOs, and countless other professionals… I put myself in a box at 18, and it limited my choices somewhat after that. So someday you may look back and decide in retrospect that it was a good thing you kept your options wide open in undergrad… even if it wasn’t by choice.
Tons of film hopefuls but few succeeded. To be successful You will need:
Luck
Who do you know
Not where you went to school. Famous film directors usually starve to death when they first started, success is because of luck and dedication.