Advice to SCA Students Thinking of Changing Career Paths

By RJ Edrolin

I recently did a student panel for SCA Admissions with prospective students and felt like I was transported to freshman year. I remember what it felt like to be a freshman in SCA. You are fed compliments about how you got into one of the best film schools in the country, itching to be on set, and daydreaming about winning an Oscar. I don’t mean to come off as a debby-downer when I say this, but the reality is that most students enter SCA with a strict plan on where they want to be after college is over and then a few semesters into the program realize that their initial path isn’t what they want anymore. It’s a completely natural experience and exactly what happened to me (and to many people I know).

For me, originally when I started at SCA my goal was to become a producer or a director. However, this dream was quickly shot down when I realized how much I dreaded being on set. I was a production assistant for a few short films, took CTPR 290, did some production design, and although I enjoyed actively making these shorts, being on set was a 100% not for me. 

With Production being out of the question, I decided to explore the business side of entertainment. My first two entertainment internships were within Social Media Marketing and Development. For those who aren’t familiar, generally, most Development internships consist of reading scripts and performing script coverage on them (summarizing them, writing feedback, etc.). Honestly, I highly encourage everyone even slightly interested in entertainment to do a Development internship since script coverage is a skill that translates across all departments. 

I actually really liked Development when I was an intern but when my internship was beginning to end, I couldn’t see myself doing it anymore. Even though Development is an exciting field, I knew I couldn’t see myself doing the work in the long run. 

Although I don’t have a formal marketing background, at the time I had a marketing student worker position and I decided to give it a go in entertainment. I applied to a few Marketing internships and landed my first ‘big girl’ Marketing internship at Blumhouse. Through this internship, I was exposed to what Marketing looked like at a medium-sized production company and had a lot of hands on deck experience. I was exposed to all kinds of Marketing, Publicity, and Communication, and by the end of my internship, I knew I was more excited when I got to do anything related to Digital Marketing, compared to other branches of Marketing. 

This ultimately led me to my Digital Marketing internship at Universal Pictures. This internship was extremely eye opening as Universal is not only a large corporation, but the range of projects I got to work on helped me create a well-rounded decision on if Digital Marketing really is for me or not. Ultimately, while there I realized that although I really enjoyed Digital Marketing, there were a few other fields that have always piqued my interest and that I wanted to try out before committing. 

As of now, my interests transcend across Marketing, Publicity, Talent Relations, and Legal. Even though my internship journey has been all over the place, I don’t regret trusting my gut and trying out numerous fields. I was scared that my background would be a disadvantage when applying to internships, but I actually think my diverse background has come in handy at times on the job!  

The realization that the path you thought was going to be yours but ultimately isn’t is natural and not even exclusive to SCA students. But the process can be extremely overwhelming. I’ve known people who’ve changed their plans from being a director to wanting to work on the business side, and vice versa. I’ve also known some people who drop SCA and entertainment altogether. And all of that is okay!

One piece of advice I want to relay to incoming SCA students is to be open to ALL fields either within entertainment or not. I’m not saying to pack up those Oscar-winning dreams or say goodbye to Hollywood forever – I just want to caution incoming students to be a sponge and expose yourself to as many fields within entertainment as you can, see if this is something you really can see yourself doing and then go after it with full force!