<p>How difficult are the film classes at USC? Take Intro to Cinema, for example. What makes them so difficult?</p>
<p>Intro to Cinema isn’t too bad, how tough you’re graded depends on the TA you get =\ For us to better answer, are you majoring CTCS or CTPR? If you’re a new incoming freshman CTPR, you’ll be one of the first to take the new BFA CTPR courses, I’m curious as to how those’ll be.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t characterize the classes as difficult per se, but as with so many other things you get out of it what you put in. The critical studies classes are somewhat like generic college classes in that you attend lectures, write papers, and have blue book (essay) exams, but you also screen films in class and 190 (the intro class) is said to separate the film students from the non-film students, because the serious ones spend all sorts of time in the cinema library learning their craft.</p>
<p>The production and writing classes are difficult in the sense that all of the work is done outside of class and you spend all of your time outside of class working on scripts and shooting films. That is a TON of work - especially if you want to do it well - but there are still people who halfa** it and it shows. Shooting fillms is a TON of work with writing the script, casting it, arranging logistics, editing it, laying in music, and putting together the finished product, but that’s where USC excels in preparing students for the actual reality of Hollywood, because that’s <em>exactly</em> how it is.</p>
<p>Subjective grading on papers and exams by varying TAs?</p>
<p>YES. Very annoying and very frustrating. You have the big lecture hall with the professor in the CTCS classes (many of whom are great) but then you have breakout discussion sections of 20 or so students and those vary a ridiculous amount depending on the TA. Some of them are great, some are not, and in either case they’re all doctoral students in critical studies, meaning that they’re the kind of quintessential film snobs who’ve never actually shot darn thing in their lives. Some TAs seem to think that everyone’s work is horrible and give everyone a C while others are more lenient to easy and it’s possible to get an A out of them. It’s just very frustrating on the student side because I actually enjoyed my critical studies classes (really) and did put in the work to do well in them, but my grades were up and down and - I can say this now - it wasn’t because of my mastery (or lack of) of the material but because of the up and down nature of the TAs.</p>
<p>BTW yes, in critical studies classes all of the grading and evaluating is done by TAs. The professors just lecture. Pretty easy for them, eh?</p>