Information for Prospective PhD Students

Every admission season brings many inquiries from prospective students, so I've designed this page to cover the basics of graduate admissions at Berkeley, as well as general advice for any student applying to the Department of Film and Media. Keep in mind this is only my individual perspective based on many years of admissions, and general inquiries should be sent to our Director of Graduate Studies.

Logistics

First it is important to note that applications to our PhD program are vetted by a faculty admissions committee, the composition of which changes every year. All applications are considered on the basis of their general fit with our department, and no student is admitted to work with any specific faculty member. In other words, students are accepted to the department, and then form advising relationships with individual faculty members based on research area and interpersonal preferences. You do not need any faculty member's permission to apply to the department, nor do you need my permission to list me as a faculty member you would be interested in working with in your application.

Advice

In general, the department is looking for students whose projects would be well supported by our current faculty, and whose research proposal demonstrates a clear understanding of the current state of our field and fits into a broad vision for future directions in film and media studies. While there are many required elements in the graduate application, my general advice is to focus on your proposed research project, as this is often what faculty gravitate toward when reading and discussing your application. The rest of the materials should support that proposal, but without a strong and specific research project you will not likely be admitted to the department.

In terms of departmental fit, while our program is constantly growing and changing with the addition of new faculty, we generally focus on the history and theory of visual media and digital technology. This is a program firmly rooted in the arts and humanities, and in general we do not advise projects structured by quantitative methods from communications or the broader social sciences. That said, we are interested in work that pushes our field in new directions, including hybrid and practice-based research in addition to more theoretical or historically inflected projects.

Meetings and Review

We receive between 100-200 applications per year for between 4-6 positions in our department. This means we all receive many requests to meet with applicants and discuss their specific work. For the sake of equity, and because my advice to all students is mostly the same, I generally do not meet with students prior to admission to the department.

General Admissions Info
Information about the admissions process is available on the department’s webpage here. An admissions FAQ is also available here.