I had my interview with University of Southern California yesterday. It was 30 minutes via skype with three of the playwriting faculty members. They wanted to make extra sure that I understood that their Dramatic Writing MFA was primarily focused on playwriting, and that students take exactly two screenwriting classes (no more, no less) through the School of Cinematic Arts. Which is fine by me. I'm a theatre geek through and through. I also asked them about teaching opportunities, as I believe someone on this forum a few years back said they had guaranteed teaching positions their second and third years. Alas, this is not the case these days. Everyone who is admitted into the program gets a 75% remission on tuition, which means that if I got no other assistance in my admission package I should expect to pay about $14K per year for this program. Offers are going out in a week, so I have the next six days to ponder whether I would pay $42K for this three year program.
I know I would make great connections through the USC program, but I've also built up a ton of regional theatre connections in the last decade that I've been doing theatre in Chicago. And all of my playwriting mentors have moved to LA and are currently writing on very successful tv shows. I've already decided that I'm moving to LA at the end of the summer, whether I get into USC or not. So the question I'm left with is would USC be worth this much money? Would it be better for me to save that money (and that debt) by investing in myself? Right now I work full time and write part time; perhaps this should be the moment in my life that I flip that ratio to working part time and writing full time. And if I still want to take a couple screenwriting/TV writing classes, perhaps it would be better (and cheaper) to just do the professional certificate program at UCLA? I welcome all thoughts and insights.
