I’ve been admitted to the film and media studies major for ucsb and the film and digital media (production and studies) major. I’ve visited both schools and I found to love ucsb campus and social life, but I love ucsc’s major. I want to be involved in the production aspect of film. I know ucsb has production courses but they’re not part of the major. With ucsc, it’s a mix of both studies and production which sounds way better. I know ucsc campus pretty well, but I excited myself of thinking of a fresh start to a new world over in santa barbara. I’m just worried that the opportunities aren’t as great over there as opposed to santa cruz’ any ideas and insight that could help me choose? This is tough.
I think UCSB would offer slightly better options for post-grad in film. It is larger, closer to LA, has a larger alumni network, and may have more resources as well. They are both really good schools, so you may want to choose also based on where you’d feel more comfortable; the environments are quite different. If you think Santa Cruz’s major will engage you more and give you a better educational experience, you can choose that. You should know that production experience will be necessary within the industry to really gain traction, so it might be easier to get PA experience within LA from UCSB in your offtime / vacations / post-grad.
Thank you for your insight. I’ve just been looking at the major requirements and for UCSB it’s all studies with one production course. Santa Cruz’s major involves both production and studies. The LA area is really what sounds good to me. but there is a popular link that shows ucsc as the #7 school for film according to USA today. It’s based on grad rate and salary. Should I take that into consideration. Also I’ve read that film and media studies is all essays, research papers, and tests from another fourm. I understand that ucsb is ranked higher, but the.major isn’t that great according to some articles. Should I really take that into consideration?
I personally wouldn’t take USA Today seriously for anything, but what seems to be the issue here is UCSC is actually a production program, and UCSB is not. Since your gut seems to be leading you to a production program, maybe you should take the latter into consideration. They are both excellent schools, so that’s not much of a problem. The other aspects of UCSB seem to fit better for you, so what you should determine is whether you are willing to arrange things so you can get some production experience, and gain traction in the industry. There are certainly UCSB graduates in the industry, probably more than UCSC re: size, location, history, but I don’t have data to back that up.
You should also consider grad school, post-grad (where you want to live, alumni), and perhaps communicating with UCSB students and faculty if it remains a strong choice, to see what things will be like for that track re: industry. There’s definitely nothing wrong with UCSC, and several advantages there.