As part of an attempt to expand Elon University’s study away domestic programs, Elon will be offering a full semester program in Los Angeles beginning in spring 2013.
More than 70 percent of Elon students study abroad during the course of their four years, according to Elon’s admissions website, but few students have taken part in a semester-long domestic program. The Los Angeles program currently exists as a summer program, but the semester program will provide a new opportunity for students to take part in professional and academic experience. The experience will be eye-opening for students, said J. McMerty, coordinator of Elon in L.A.
“We often use the term that it ‘demystifies’ the Hollywood experience,” McMerty said. “So it’s not just what you see on ‘Entourage’ or in movies. You actually get to live there, in this case in the spring, for 100 days and see what it’s like to live and work in the entertainment capital of the world.”
The program, which will take a maximum of 24 students, will be open to 14 to 16 Elon students and eight to 10 students from other universities that do not offer domestic programs in Los Angeles, McMerty said.
Connie Book, associate provost for academic affairs and professor of communications, said Elon plans to open the program up to students from universities that offer a similar undergraduate experience to Elon, such as Butler University in Indiana, which has an experiential learning requirement similar to Elon’s. Book, who served as associate dean of the School of Communications when the Los Angeles summer program began, said she hopes the trip will help Elon students make connections with students from other schools and programs.
“I like that they live at Oakwood housing, which houses several other university programs,” Book said. “And I’m always hopeful that they’ll reach outside of the Elon cohort and talk to the kids from Syracuse and Ithaca and Texas. There are so many universities running their own Los Angeles programs that I hope that in that setting they’ll stop and talk to the other kids.”
Four Elon students have already been admitted to the semester program, for which the early decision date is March 15. Among them are freshmen cinema majors Jordan Roman and Ben Stringfellow, both of whom said they are excited to have the opportunity to study in Los Angeles.
“I want to be a film director and I came to Elon saying I need to jump into things as fast as possible, which is good and bad,” Stringfellow said. “It’s not good to just run straight-forward at things, but at the same time, I really wanted to get my feet in the water as soon as possible, and I feel like this is the best way to do it.”
McMerty said internships are an important pillar of the program, and he hopes that students will get a good internship and professional experience out of the Elon in LA semester program. Roman said the program will give him a head-start in working in the film industry.
“The fact that it is in Los Angeles really drew me to it,” Roman said. “I really wanted to spend some time out in Los Angeles getting internships and just getting my name out there and working and just getting some experience in Los Angeles because I think that really is the crucial place you have to be (to be a filmmaker).”
The university hopes to learn more about domestic semester programs from the Los Angeles program, Book said.
“I think pilots are really important, because they teach us what kind of services students are looking for and how we can infuse those services with important intellectual moments for students and important personal development,” she said.