University of Southern California Masters in Professional Writing

Reviewer's Name:

WriterGal

Review Date

March 18, 2009

Year of Graduation:

2007

Review Title:

The Good, The Bad, and The Enh..

Full Review of the Program:

My first semester in the program proved to be a prediction for my overall experience. I had Mel Shavelson for an Intro to Screenplay – a class where we spent an entire semester writing a treatment and he told me that “no one makes comic book movies anymore” in 2005. My other class was a writing seminar with Janet Fitch, where she improved my skill as both a short story writer and an editor.

My next few semesters would continue like this with a mix of great classes with amazing professors where my writing dramatically improved and classes that were a waste of time, where I spent most of the 3 hours contemplating what I could have used the money I was spending on the class on.

I agree with an earlier reviewer who said you get what you put in. When I was motivated and willing to spend time making phone calls and pressuring folks, I was able to get answers about anything and was polishing stories that have since been published. When I was too busy with work, or having a personal life, I got away with meeting basic requirements and really had nothing to show/worth submitting at the end. Though, this might have been the best lesson about trying to get a writing career started…

Advice to Prospective Students:

Most of the things that I had problems with are being/have been changed with the new Dean.

However, my biggest peice of advice is don't waste your money on the technical writing class. As someone who works in this field, you would be better off buying a technical writing for dummies style manual, or enrolling in a community college class.