Overview

The Media Arts & Culture Department (MAC) integrates the study of film and media, digital and visual culture, and media production, working with students to engage an increasingly participatory media landscape. We produce graduates who are media literate, technologically savvy, critically engaged, and culturally and historically informed.

Our students research and write about a broad range of topics in the fields of film and media; they create a wide variety of audiovisual media, including fiction, documentary, and experimental work; they advance media making beyond the screen into installation, public, and mobile spaces; and they learn new tools for digital scholarship. Students produce senior comprehensives capstone work in one of two tracks: Critical Media or Media Production. All students, regardless of their project choice, are expected to push the boundaries of media scholarship, project form, and modes of audiovisual communication.

Note that it is not possible to complete the MAC major in less than three years due to course sequencing. Two gateway courses must be successfully completed before spring semester junior year in order for students to enroll in the Junior Seminar. If interested in a study abroad semester, this must occur in the fall of junior year. As comparable gateway courses are difficult to find away from Occidental, students intending to study abroad should complete gateway courses by the end of sophomore year.