It's that saying, six to one, and half a dozen to the other. It was stupid, and expensive, and 95% of the teachers were assholes or incompetents or both, and a lot of the processes got drove into me and took years to unlearn, and we never really got down to a love of film, and no younger member of the class really got a chance, and no good movies came out of it.
However
It prepared us for the absolute worst of the business, fighting for every little thing, climatizing us to doing every job and having high stress and dealing with idiots. And I met some of my best friends there, that I will work with and hang out with for the rest of my life, and I have a lot of funny memories. So how can you say you'd rather not have, y'know, and saved the money and made your own movie instead. I dunno...
btw, Phil, seems like your film school has a pretty good set-up, like they care. Exclusive and all that.
Those who say that the totalitarian state of the Soviet Union was not "real" Marxism also cannot admit that one simple feature of Marxism makes totalitarianism necessary: the rejection of civil society. Since civil society is the sphere of private activity, its abolition and replacement by political society means that nothing private remains. That is already the essence of totalitarianism; and the moralistic practice of the trendy Left, which regards everything as political and sometimes reveals its hostility to free speech, does nothing to contradict this implication.
When those who hated capital and consumption (and Jews) in the 20th century murdered some hundred million people, and the poster children for the struggle against international capitalism and America are now fanatical Islamic terrorists, this puts recent enthusiasts in an awkward position. Most of them are too dense and shameless to appreciate it, and far too many are taken in by the moralistic and paternalistic rhetoric of the Left.