Drexel Co-Op: The Ultimate Internship (tm)

(8/9/07)

Drexel University has long been known for it's co-operative education/internship programs, through which students mix periods of full time, career related employment with their studies. All Screenwriting & Playwriting students are expected to pursue co-op employment.

The Screenwriting & Playwriting degree is completed in four years and includes one six-month period of full time employment. Although it is extremely unlikely that a co-op student will be employed to write a feature film or television show, the co-op experience can be of significant value.

By working in film/video production companies, television stations, cable networks, local and regional theaters, and advertising agencies in positions ranging from assistant to the dramaturg to production assistant to research aide, to, possibly, script reader for a Hollywood studio, the Screenwriting & Playwriting student gains invaluable insights into how scripts are evaluated and how they become productions. The student also begins to develop an understanding of the script marketplace: what it takes to get scripts read and considered, how to locate job prospects, what is commercially viable, what needs independent financing, and how his/her work might eventually fit.

Most of all, in an industry where the pipeline to success often begins with relationships, our cooperative education student has a leg-up; she has already begun the process of meeting the people with whom she may be working professionally.

In the Program's first year, co-op students were placed with Disney Video Animation, with a prominent Hollywood management firm, with the publisher of a screenwriters' magazine, and as assistants to several working writer/producers.

More recently, students have worked with Rigberg-Rugolo Entertainment, a management firm specializing in actors, writers and directors; with ESI Kidz, a talent agency that represents animals and child actors; and on the staff of "Two and a Half Men" the CBS sitcom.

In May of 2003, Drexel junior Greg Benevent won an Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (ATAS) internship, one of the most prized in the country. He was one of 35 winners out of 888 applicants, winning a chance to work under Brannon Braga, executive producer of "Star Trek: Enterprise."

In June of 2003, John Reha, in Los Angeles for his co-op, went over to the dark side.

One of the most-envied co-op students is probably Tom Brennan, who went to New York for Spring and Summer, 2004, to work in the office of Marvel Comics-- and instantly started lording it over the rest of us. (Now, after graduation, he's back at Marvel as an editor.)

Julia Curco parleyed her co-op with Young Playwrights of Philadelphia into a job after graduation.

Jon Wagner got an "awesome" co-op working for Kaplan/Perrone, a management and production company on the Sony lot in L.A.

And, of our current students, the co-op star is probably Deborah Yarchun, who spent part of her co-op in spring of 2006 watching her play, "Freeze Frame," being produced off-Broadway.