Irritating email and reasons why school is good...

Today I got my first piece of "gee you're stupid" email. It went something like this:

"you don't need to go to school to be a documentary film maker.
seems to me like a big waste of 57K."

Having just finished a 9 minute, grant funded film (printed in 35mm mind you) I am very aware that I do not need to go to school to be a film maker. But additional education does afford me the following:

1. Time to focus all of my energy on making a feature. Right now my job takes up most of my time. And I need a job to pay the rent. And making films this way ends up taking years. And I'm 31 and want to start focusing on making films now.

2. Columbia has enormous amounts of connections. I will have the opportunity to work all over the world with people I deeply respect, just because I've been accepted to this program. And my films are more likely to be picked up at festivals because of these connections.

3. An MFA. What the above person fails to realize is that I have been teaching college courses in Boston. I really enjoy teaching and I could be working full time as a professor right now if I had a master's degree. So, getting an MFA will really help my opportunities for teaching.

I am not asking anyone to donate $57,000. I am merely asking 40,000 people to donate a dollar. If you don't want to donate because you're cheap or morally opposed to the idea, that's fine. But I am trying to find a way that I can actually pay for grad school and this is my idea. And it's hard. It's hard to ask people for money. It's embarrassing to send out emails and make phone calls. But I want to go to school, and hopefully this plot will raise just enough to cover tuition money.