Film & Media Studies Learning Goals

Through the course of their study, Film and Media Studies majors should meet the following learning goals:

• Develop clear and cogent writing skills, with the ability to practice a variety of rhetorical approaches.

• Develop technical skills and artistic vision as makers of moving-image media.

• Attain a breadth of media study in terms of form (narrative, experimental, documentary), format (cinematic, televisual, electronic, digital), and national and historical arenas.

• Acquire sophistication in the historiographical, methodological, and theoretical challenges of moving-image media study. Students should be able to determine the formal significance of a film or television text, for instance, as well as its cultural, historical, and theoretical significance. Study in the major should also enable students to understand issues of representation and identity in terms of what we see on screen (image), who makes moving-image media (production), and who sees it (reception).

• Gain an understanding of the ways in which an integrated approach to film and media, through a critical understanding and a creative practice, can offer us both depth and breadth towards understanding the world in which we live.