By Siena Giljum (’22)

When students commit to Boston University, they usually know what weather they’re signing up for: snow, wind chill, and the occasional single-digit temperature. None of that was much of a change for Massachusetts native Marcella Vega (CAS/QST’20), but the sunny skies and sandy beaches of Los Angeles, California certainly were.

That’s because during the spring 2018 semester, Marcella attended the Boston University LA study abroad program on the entertainment management track. Most students see the program as a stepping stone for COM majors entering the film or television industry. But Marcella, who is set to receive a dual degree in economics from CAS and business with a marketing concentration from Questrom in May 2019, recognized the program’s value for liberal arts students like herself.

“I’ve always loved the idea of working in film and the idea of helping on the business aspect of things but I didn’t understand it,” she said. “I knew BU LA is where all the film and TV kids went to get production jobs, so why wouldn’t I go for a business job in the same field?”

While interning for BU Admissions Marketing as part of the CAS IN 250 course (a class that guides liberal arts students through campus internships) during her sophomore year, Marcella learned that studying economics didn’t have to limit her to one industry. With the confidence that she could pursue entertainment with her degree, she jetted off to LA during her junior year.

Hollywood 101

Marcella enrolled in three classes while in California, including one that covered talent representation and management with Randi Siegel. Siegel is credited with launching late-night host Jimmy Fallon’s career and now manages several comedians as the CEO of Randi Siegel Entertainment.

“She just made me incredibly confident that I understood what a talent agent did, or what a manager did, or what a publicist’s role was,” Marcella says.

Marcella also took music management, co-taught by Ben Laski, an entertainment lawyer who moonlights as a DJ, and Steph Mirsky, a BU alum and former marketing director for the Vans Warped Tour. “We went through everything from Napster and how that destroyed the industry to where they are now and what streaming has done,” Marcella says. The third class was entertainment finance, which walked students through the process of fundraising for an independent film.

The star of the show: the study of economics

Internships are at the crux of why many students choose to study abroad in LA. Luckily, BU LA has an internship database that includes all the companies with existing connections to the program and what alumni work there. It simplifies what can be a frustrating process.

Marcella had two internships: one at a digital marketing agency called Xivic and another at BHI, an entertainment public relations agency. At Xivic, Marcella got a crash course on search engine optimization (SEO). She created organic and paid content for Google ads, and learned social media buying and the importance of a marketing budget. Thus, her economics background came in handy.

“I think people really discredit digital marketing for how much analytics it incorporates, but you really need to go forward with an objective, understand what your base assumptions are, and execute your model. “And coming from an econ background and understanding that world was probably one of the major reasons I got this internship,” she says. “They were genuinely looking for someone who wasn’t just a creative.”

Of course, creativity is still a huge pillar of the entertainment industry. Marcella experienced that firsthand during her second internship at BHI, whose major client is DC Entertainment.

“We did a lot for their comic book department, and so I would be in charge of drafting a press release about a major comic that was about to come out, or one time I got to pitch to a journalist about this Green Lantern spinoff they were doing,” she says. “I booked a venue for comedy gigs at one point; I wrote press releases, so it was a lot more writing-based, but it was dope.”

Both employers demonstrated a commitment to giving students concrete experience rather than just sending them on coffee runs. “I was always doing work that ended up helping the client,” Marcella says. “Whether it was posting on social media or pitching to a journalist, they really cared about my growth.”

Is LA even considered abroad?

While it’s labeled as such, students are often skeptical of the idea of a destination within the contiguous United States as a choice for “study abroad.” Marcella knows first-hand it’s nothing like campus. “I never really left Massachusetts for longer than two weeks to visit family in other countries,” Marcella says. “It was really cool to see that people who are just walking around LA, I think, are very chilled out, but as soon as you get into one of those agencies, everything was a hustle. You just had to be working, working, working. It was a cool dichotomy. It was definitely different than Boston even though it was a domestic program.”

In addition to fostering connections with professors and bosses, Marcella created valuable personal relationships that added another layer of meaning to her experience. She attributes growing so close with her roommates (fellow BU students) to their shared commitment to “the hustle” of the entertainment industry.

One of her favorite memories is visiting Dockweiler State Beach one day when she and a roommate were sick. The beach is famous for the low-flying planes departing from LAX and soaring over the shoreline. “We should’ve stayed in and gotten better, but we went to that beach and we just watched airplanes fly past the sea.”

Being in LA completely flipped the script for Marcella, who is now focused on landing a full-time position in entertainment. “If anything, it’s just made me fully confident that what I want right now is an entry-level position in the entertainment industry, either with a musician or in film. It’s really helped me go from like, ‘ah, marketing and econ, what’s that?’ to, ‘this is what I’m gonna do, and we’ll see where this goes.’” She is applying for positions all over the country, including Atlanta for film, Nashville for music, and, of course, Los Angeles.

Wherever she lands right after graduation, her ideal career in digital marketing combines elements of both her degrees and her abroad experience. “I would just love to do something where I’m in control of all the facts and figures. I love being the person who’s able to find how to do it.”

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Siena Giljum studies journalism in the College of Communication (’22) with a Spanish minor in the College of Arts and Sciences. She is from Southern California and hopes to one day write for The Atlantic. She loves podcasts and avocados, in no particular order.

(Photos: Marcella Vega)