Youssef from Egypt - M.F.A. Mass Communication and Media Arts

My name is Youssef Osman.  I'm from Egypt.  I'm a  M.F.A. candidate in Mass Communication and Media Arts.  My area of interest is mainly film, narrative.  Both digital narrative or film.

I have a bachelor's degree and my master's degree from the Academy of Arts Higher Institute for Cinema from Egypt, and my background was mainly film directing and I worked in the industry over there in both commercials and music videos, but for years I've been experimenting with different formats working with photography, film, video and I liked the idea that the interdisciplinary program allows students to cross over in to different areas and experiment.

My project is basically focusing on the famous Middle Eastern text "1001 Arabian Nights."  What I'm doing is basically adapting the structure to tell more of a personal approach to tell my own personal stories which deal with political and contemporary social issues.

There's a number of classes that I really liked here.  Among them is the M.F.A. Studio classes which opens the door for you to experiment with different formats and a different style of work. The Critique classes were good as well.  You get a chance to get everybody's feedback about your work on a weekly basis. 

SIU is one of the few schools that really actually offers an assistantship from the first year to their M.F.A. students.  I know that other schools usually offer that in the 2nd year or the 3rd year.

I gained a lot of experience from being a teaching assistant on a number of classes like Film Analysis, Copywriting, Advertising to even being a research assistant and helping professors on their own personal projects.

Throughout my M.F.A. program I was able to also teach a number of workshops.  The school allows us this room to also gain experience teaching.  I did a number of After Effects and Shake compositing workshops throughout the years and did various presentations on different kinds of cameras especially the digital cinematography DSLR cameras that are coming out right now.  I think having the opportunity to do that was a great experience as well.

The M.F.A. program actually has a really good balance between practice and theory.

One of the great things is that we took a lot of theory classes in Mass Communication with a lot of Ph.D. students.  So, it doesn't just focus on the practical side, it also tries to develop your theory which is very important, it has a great influence on your creative work as well.

What I would like to pursue is to both continue my production work and at the same time be able to teach while doing that, and I think that the M.F.A. degree as a terminal degree provides students with the opportunity to do that.  The M.F.A. was able to provide that balance that made the whole degree more fun, the whole journey was pretty fun.