<p>I’m currently a frosh at UCLA but it’s been a kinda disheartening experience so far. I’ve taken a few interesting classes, but overall, I kinda feel like…what am I really doing there? I don’t feel like I’m learning anything that I couldn’t learn myself just by reading books of interest and the like.</p>
<p>I want to work in the film industry/book industry (or I guess journalism if those don’t pan out). I’m gonna apply to UCLA’s film program, but I wonder if even that is really worth it. Maybe I’d save my parents a lot of money and myself a lot of time and energy if I were to just make films on my own, submit them to fests, apply for entry-level jobs at studios, etc? </p>
<p>Any advice would be great. I don’t know; I just feel pretty disappointed by the college experience so far and wonder if I’m wasting my time…</p>
<p>… needed to succeed in film. Journalism, maybe…</p>
<p>Steven Spielberg was a very poor student and dropped out of Cal State Long Beach. But he was always a supreme film maker even very young in his life.</p>
<p>Barry Diller dropped out of UCLA after a quarter and went to work in a mailroom for either a talent agency or film studio. David Geffen dropped out of college, went to work for the mailroom for a talent agency, I think it was William Morris. He told HR that he graduated from UCLA and had to hijack the mail sent from UCLA that said he wasn’t a grad.</p>
<p>Maybe mailroom of a studio would be something you might want to look into.</p>
<p>The writer for the Harry Potter movies dropped out of UCLA because he didn’t get into UCLA film school.</p>
<p>So there are plenty of dropout stories to take heart from in the entertainment industry.</p>
<p>One thing though: You have to be supremely confident in your creative abilities, which I assume you are.</p>
<p>An interesting take on college in this century from Cathy Davidson, Assoc. Provost at Duke and co-founder of the Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory. The notion of higher education as the assimilation of information is passe.:</p>
<p>"The twentieth century might well be defined as the century of standardization, efficiency, specialization, and certification . . . the assembly line and standardization and all those metrics of the early 20th century are now describing a principle of communication and productivity that increasingly do not exist. With the Internet and the World Wide Web, no one is at the controls saying which information will go where. All information is bundled at the end point (my computer or, at most, my server) and then capable of being captured by any other end point (your computer), without a broadcaster, a publisher, an editor, a manager, a company, a foreman, or a CEO. This end-to-end principle requires collaborative skills, judgment and logical skills, synthesizing and analytical abilities, critical and creative skills, qualitative and quantitative skills, all together, with few lines between them.</p>
<p>“Just as the assembly line rearranged everything about work and school in the 20th century, the Internet and the World Wide Web are rearranging our lives in the 21st century . . . Because of the financial crisis, a lot of idiotic things are happening now, such as cutting back the humanities . . . or thinking that online courses can substitute for higher education. Where, exactly, will students learn those invaluable interpersonal job skills from online courses, especially if they are conceived as a revenue-producer, not as interactive, challenging, collaborative enhancements?”</p>
<p>… if you wanted to get into the less creative side of film… production, then you should stick, and even go for as much education as possible, including, say, l-school. There are plenty in film production that have law degrees. Also do internships, etc, all in college. In other words, play the game, conform…</p>
<p>OP, I’ll bet half the people in college feel the same way and are not aware enough to verbalize it. There is nothing inherently different about a 1->many lecture with no discussion, and a Wiki, other than the fact that the lecturer presumably, having been actually hired by a faculty, is reasonably correct in most of what he/she presents. And charges $200 for each class to every student warming the seat.</p>
<p>I actually find more interesting discussion on Internet Boards (such as this one) than I ever found in a classrom with more than, say, 20 students. Large lectures would be much more efficiently delivered via streaming. No more parking, no mor 25 minute walks from dorm to class, no more wasted commuting.</p>
<p>OP, I say take a break from school. If you’re not sure why you’re there, then by all means just make a list of topics actually of interest to you, research those topics, find discussion boards to participate in, find discussion groups to see face/face, and come back to University when you have a reason to be there. BTW. just wanting to grow up and have a great time in college is a completely legitimate enterprise. There doesn’t need to be a higher purpose.</p>