Columna: Estudiar en una universidad “prestigiosa” no te hace mejor

Escrito por Marco Velez Esquivia

Este artículo del Wall Street Journal, que me encontré en Twitter, habla como “Columbia and other wealthy universities steer master's students to federal loans that can exceed $250,000. After graduation, many learn the debt is well beyond their means.”

Yo sentí esto cuando estaba buscando mi escuela de cine a la cual aplicar para mi maestría. Apliqué a Columbia y no pasé. Apliqué a NYU (pasé!) y a AFI (pasé) pero después miras que no hay forma de cómo subsistir, no solamente durante la etapa de estudio, sino que iba a tener una deuda impagable por el resto de mi vida. Entonces me fui con mi opción más económica: empaqué mis maletas y me fui a Francia con una beca de Colfuturo, el Fondo para el Desarrollo Cinematográfico y la Embajada Francesa.

Me fui a estudiar a EICAR, una escuela que no sale ni en las 100 “mejores” escuelas de cine del mundo pero fue la experiencia que yo necesitaba para mi carrera. Y más importante, no quedé con una deuda impagable.

En ese post de Twitter, encontré este hilo de James Stoteraux (escritor y productor ejecutivo de Batwoman) que estudió en Columbia y me parece que es importante para la gente que está pensando en estudiar al exterior o en una universidad nacional.

There were 55 students in my incoming class at Columbia’s MFA Film program. Only 4 of us ever managed to make a career out of it. And of those 4, one guy dropped out the first semester. Funny enough he’s the most successful one having co-directed Avengers Endgame. Hi Anthony!

Many of the students in my class who didn’t turn their degrees into industry success were insanely talented, but Columbia traded on its reputation to sell them big dreams that it could never deliver.

During my 2nd year I suspected that the school wasn’t providing a launching pad to a career — most of the instructors were struggling to establish a career themselves & many weren’t even much more experienced than their students. A 4th yr student taught our cinematography class.

The brass ring the program dangled was that your film could be chosen for the annual festival where, in theory, big-time agents would see it and maybe sign you. But it was cutthroat to even be selected for the festival. And tuition didn’t cover the cost to make those films.

You were on your own to pay for them. One year the film that won the festival was a WW2 story shot in Europe complete with a fucking tank. Students were going into debt to the tune of 100K to make films with the hope that they might maybe have a chance to be seen by a CAA agent.

Not having the money to make a film, I switched to writing. I teamed up with a friend to write a screenplay that we hoped could be our calling card. We proudly entered it in the program’s script contest… only to have the faculty judges reject it in the very first round.

Within a year, that script sold — not because of anything my fancy school did, but because randomly I met a producer’s assistant who offered to read it, liked it, & championed to his boss. Best of all, that assistant was promoted — so it worked out for all of us. Thanks Justin!

I was officially a working writer, but I was still 2 credits shy of getting my degree. I asked if there was possibly a way I could finish my degree while in LA starting my career. But Columbia was offended by the request and refused. So I dropped out within 2 credits of MFA.

After a few years as a working writer, a Columbia administrator asked if I would speak as an alum at a student event. I agreed to talk to the students, but pointed out that I’m not an alum. Hearing the situation (2 credits short!) the admin lobbied the program’s Chair to help.

The Chair reached out and said he was confident that we could work out an arrangement to get my degree. But he insisted that I fly out to NYC immediately for an in-person meeting. So I spent a fortune on a last-minute flight in order to hear his proposal.

But instead of telling me what I need to do to satisfy the requirements to get my degree, the Chair began pitching me his idea for a TV pilot. In excruciating scene-by-scene detail. I nodded along, waiting to get back to the terms of me getting my degree. But to my horror...

…I slowly begin to realize this IS the deal. He made it pretty clear if I wanted my degree, I needed to help him sell his tv pilot. Yep, the Chair of Columbia’s prestigious graduate film program tried to shake me down in order to jump-start his own stalled out career.

I still don't have my MFA. That Chair is no longer the Chair, but still teaching there. And to my knowledge, they never sold their pilot.

I need to add that while the MFA Film was a total scam, it's tame compared to horrors of Columbia's MFA Theater program. Those students experienced all the hobbling levels of debt, but also were subjected to unrelenting sexual harassment from the head of that program.

It wasn’t a secret. Students reported it. And much of the abuse & degradation took place openly in classes, with him demanding actresses strip naked & perform for him. the school knew about it but instead of stopping it, profited off it. There needs to be a reckoning.

La moraleja para mi es que estudia donde puedes estudiar sin tener una deuda impagable que no te deja experimentar, y se vos el mayor encargado de tu educación. Muchas escuelas de cine y de actuación son una mentira. Eso no es solamente en escuelas de arte sino en muchas otras carreras y en universidades más “respetables”.

Para mi, el estudiar en EICAR me dio 2 profesores (de los muchos que tuve) que abrieron mis ojos en muchas cosas y aprendí absurdamente demasiado. Pero en donde más aprendí, fue poder ir a la Cinémathèque cuantas veces quisiera.

A veces no es la escuela, sino el sitio y la gente a tu alrededor. Porque sacar un 5 o un A+ o ganar el festival interno de la escuela, no significa nada. Te lo digo yo, que tuve 5’s, Excelentes, A+‘s. Lo que realmente importa es lo mucho que vos te esforzás y trabajás por ser mejor en tu arte, en tu trabajo, en tu carrera.