some advice needed from current SCA film students

madbean
Wed, 02 Jun 2010 13:29:28 +0000

ecymom, USC does all advising during orientation. The reason is–requirements for each major are rather complex and sequencing will depend on APs and other programs (TO?) the student plans to complete. For instance, each TO student will attend a TO advisement session as well as the advisement session for their individual major (each SCA major has a different counseling and advisement session). They simply do not make all the information available ahead of time.

When my son attended orientation, I was concerned that the TO and SCA sessions were scheduled at the same time. It was impossible for him to attend both! I actually attended one of them (for his tiny major) and got all the paperwork and schedule worksheets. I also helped by going online that night and setting up a sample schedule for him with the courses he needed to take. Most TO kids will take TO CORE 102 and 111 first semester freshman year. They only hand out the actual section descriptions (there are about 8 102’s, each with a different theme, reading list, professor, and of course, time/day) so my son indicated his favorite classes and I tried to work them into some sort of a schedule (as each has discussion meetings and so on). He also took the SCA 190 class, as most SCA majors will first semester. This large lecture class shows a film a week and has one of SCA’s top professors at the helm. For his last 4 unit class, he selected another SCA class in his major. In addition, my son wanted to take a 2-unit Freshman seminar class (students are allowed up to 18 units per semester) for fun.

For registration, he needed to get D-clearances from his advisors, so that all happens the second day. Not too difficult–but very last minute.

Best of luck.