They dodged a downpour to make it in to class tonight, but it’s otherwise a typical Tuesday for the 2026 cohort of the Penn State Hollywood Program. Students fill the four short rows of seats in the L-shaped studio space—high ceilings, black soundproofing on the walls—that doubles as their classroom. Deepak Sethi, the program’s director, sits on a stool at the front of the class and opens things up with a simple question: “What’s been going on in the business?”

The conversation that follows is easy but intentional. Students share updates from their respective internships. Sethi quizzes the class on whether last year’s industry box office total was higher or lower than the year before. (About 9% higher, it turns out.) He preps them for the night’s three industry guest speakers: A successful showrunner, a longtime publicist for one of the biggest studios in town, and finally, Andrew Kevin Walker ’86 Com, the screenwriter responsible for director David Fincher’s classic movie Seven.

Tuesdays are class days in the Hollywood Program. The 16 students enrolled in this spring’s cohort, who spend their days interning at studios, agencies, and management firms around town, get together in this building on Sunset Boulevard one night each week for a 3½-hour session of class time, temperature checks, and conversations with industry veterans. By the time Walker’s session wraps up it’s pushing 10 p.m., but the group’s focus is undeniable: They ask thoughtful questions and take notes by hand, and there’s not a phone in sight.

It’s a long night capping an even longer day, and they’ve all got to be up early for work tomorrow. It probably helps that they’re all in their early 20s, but it’s also clear that they understand the opportunity. They wouldn’t have made it this far if they didn’t.

Ten years after its first class left Happy Valley for an immersive spring semester in Southern California, the Penn State Hollywood Program has evolved into both a destination for students in the Bellisario College of Communications—increasingly, the reason many of them choose Penn State in the first place—and a thriving network of alumni in prominent roles across the entertainment industry. It’s an undeniable success story that comes at a time of unprecedented challenges for that industry, in which the rise of streaming services, the lingering impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the disruptive presence of artificial intelligence have many questioning Hollywood’s future. Surviving—as both a creative endeavor and a viable business—will require smart, dedicated people with both a sense of the industry’s history and a vision for how it can sustainably evolve.

People who will probably look a lot like the ones in this classroom.

Bob Richards had an idea he could make this work.

More importantly, Richards ’83, ’84 MA Lib—an emeritus professor since retiring in 2024 after 36 years as a professor in first the School and then the College of Communications—had a track record as someone who knew how to bring great ideas to fruition. He earned a law degree shortly before beginning his Penn State teaching career, expertise he put to use when he founded the Pennsylvania Center for the First Amendment in 1992. But the model for what he would eventually create on the West Coast was born in 1995, when he oversaw the launch of the Penn State Washington Program, establishing a regular presence in Washington, D.C., that began with an internship program and eventually grew to include classes there.

Running the Washington Program—named in 2016 for Stanley E. Degler ’51 Com, who established a $1 million endowment to support it—not only meant coordinating internships and teaching classes in a city more than three hours from State College, but also meant handling practical concerns such as securing student housing and planning for daily commutes. Before long, he knew exactly what it took to run a comprehensive remote program. He didn’t yet know he would eventually start another one.

“I was out [in Los Angeles] on sabbatical in 2012, and because I’m a nerd, I’m reading Variety,” Richards says of the long-running entertainment industry trade magazine. “I saw an article about universities that have programs in LA, so I called and met with the directors of these programs. And the idea is a semester where you get total immersion in the entertainment business, and a very low-risk way to see if, A, this is a place they want to live, and B, if this is an industry they want to work in.”

He’d picked up a few tricks from the Washington experience, such as recognizing the value of not duplicating, when possible, the efforts of more established programs. When Richards learned that Emerson College, whose Hollywood presence dates back to the 1980s, had its own 107,000-square-foot building on Sunset Boulevard, he asked about leasing classroom space there. A large corporate housing complex with views of the Universal and Warner Bros. Studio lots provided a logical option for student housing. He knew that figuring out transportation might be more challenging—LA’s light-rail system is no match for the convenience of the D.C. Metro—but time proved that enough students would be able to either manage the bus schedules or bring their cars from home to make it feasible.

Of course, the program’s ultimate viability would hinge on the value of its coursework, and on the internship opportunities it provided. Both would require contacts who were already plugged in. For the former, a friend of Richards’ introduced him to an up-and-coming writer named Deepak Sethi, who at the time was in the writers’ room for a new animated series on HBO Max. Richards explained the program to him, and Sethi told him he’d love to build and teach a class. They solidified a model: Sethi would teach comedy writing, while Richards would teach classes on entertainment and media law. The rest of the students’ time would be focused on internships.

Richards prioritized making contacts anywhere he could—“I’d try to at least get in the door at all these places and talk to somebody,” he says—since the program would rely so heavily on connections. In a town built on networking, this brand-new endeavor would need to build its own network, fast.

While Penn State had lacked a formal presence in Hollywood, it was hardly lacking for successful alumni. Many of them now hold spots on the program’s board: producer Gerald Abrams ’61 Com, studio heads Paul Schaeffer ’68 Bus, Tom Ortenberg ’82 Lib, and Hal Sadoff ’86 Bus, and Emmy-winning director Mary Lou Belli ’78 A&A are prominent among the dozens of Penn Staters who have built long and successful Hollywood careers. And then there’s Mike Marcus ’67 Bus, whose career includes time as a top agent, a talent manager, and head of MGM Pictures. Now leading the management team at Echo Lake Entertainment, Marcus embodies the best of what those alumni can offer current students and recent alums: advice, perspective, internships, and—potentially—jobs.

Sethi, who took over as program director after Richards retired in 2024, calls Marcus “the bedrock of the board.”

“I’ve been doing this since 1968, I’ve had an amazing career, and I’ve been lucky as hell,” Marcus says. “At some point, you’ve gotta give back, and what I preach more than anything is networking. I get calls constantly from the kids who went through the class, and I offer whatever advice I can.”

Like many of the alums who made it to Hollywood prior to the program’s existence, Marcus took an indirect—and fairly solitary—path: from graduation to an Air National Guard stint in Texas to technical school in Denver, landing in LA only after a friend talked him into moving there. Once there, he thought he might end up selling insurance. “I had no idea about getting into the movie business,” he says.

That he did—starting in the mailroom at the talent agency that would eventually become industry giant ICM, then earning quick promotions to become an agent himself—speaks to the smarts, sharp instincts, and work ethic necessary for anyone who hopes to succeed in such a competitive industry. Michael McIntyre ’90 A&A, another board member, took a similarly circuitous path: He ultimately poured his graphic design skills into founding MOCEAN, a small boutique design shop that has grown into a dynamic marketing agency. (If you’ve seen a trailer for any big-budget film in recent years, you’ve likely seen MOCEAN’s work.)

The successful careers of alumni such as Marcus and McIntyre are all the more impressive in that they came, at least initially, unassisted by a formal network. That, for today’s students, is where the Hollywood Program can make all the difference. “These guys came out here alone, I came alone; you don’t really know what you’re doing when you get here, and it’s kind of lonely,” Sethi says. “The greatest thing if you’re interested in a career here is having a built-in cohort of people.”

That network is invaluable, but it’s the students and the alumni on whom the program’s success—and reputation—ultimately depend.

The Hollywood Program didn’t exist when Jesse Pepperman started at Penn State. That turned out to be perfect timing. 

Pepperman ’17 Com had already been accepted into the Washington Program as a Bellisario junior when he heard about the inaugural class planned for LA. He pitched himself to Richards as “the ideal guinea pig” for a student who might do the two programs back-to-back. It must have been a good pitch: After spending the fall of 2015 in D.C., Pepperman headed to LA the following January as part of the first Hollywood class.

Pepperman, now a strategy director at the global content platform Lionsgate (the big studios are rarely just “studios” anymore), had some luck on his side: He couldn’t have known when he began his internship on the reception desk at Echo Lake that he and Marcus were both Beta Sig brothers—Marcus spotted the “ΒΣB” sticker on Pepperman’s laptop—which sparked a conversation that grew over time into an enduring mentorship. But there was no luck in Pepperman’s selection to the program; like every student in that first class and since, he had to earn his spot. With upward of 100 applications each year for 16 (or occasionally 20) spots, it’s a competitive process; strong grades, involvement in student media organizations, and prior internships all carry a lot of weight. “I would never take a student who hadn’t been really vetted,” Richards says.

The students appreciate why it matters. “We were treated as adults, and we were given a lot of responsibility,” says Katelyn Forman ’23 Com, who works as a literary assistant at Mosaic Management. “Bob and Deepak both talked a lot about how we’re representing Penn State, so it was important to make a good impression.”

Each class arrives understanding the expectations, both for themselves and the classes that will follow. The opportunities make it easy to stay focused. Audrey Keller is a rising senior for whom the Hollywood Program was a primary draw in her college decision. Along with a couple of her spring 2026 program classmates, she decided that she wanted to stay in LA this summer; she managed to secure an internship at a talent agency two days before she was set to return home in May.

“I’ve come out of this not only with connections, but with a real understanding of what this could look like as a career,” she says. “The program gave me a look at what life in LA would be like after college, and what working in Hollywood would look like just starting out.” 

For Sa’fian Lewis ’26 Com, a Philadelphia native, part of the program’s value came from clarifying that she didn’t necessarily need to stay in Los Angeles to build a career in the industry. She interned this spring with Ximen Media Group, a production company run by Delmar Washington ’05 Com, and she knows the experience she got as a podcast technical director can be applicable much closer to home. Wherever she lands, she’s confident she’ll be able to rely on the connections she made in LA. “It was an amazing experience,” she says. “Being out there for so long, we built a network, but it felt more like we built a family.”

That family gets bigger every year. In part, that’s simple math, but it’s also a credit to Sethi—currently writing for a new animated series at Fox—who takes as much pride in teaching these students and stewarding the growing alumni network as he does his own career. “I have friends who did other programs, and I would say what really stands out is, we have Deepak, and no one else does,” Forman says. “He’s not only our professor out here, he’s a mentor.”

Monthly alumni networking dinners are a regular part of the spring schedule, with a handful of program alumni invited to each to dine and share insights with the current students. But Sethi, with a huge assist from LA-based program coordinator Isabelle Carasso, also prioritizes keeping those alumni connected with each other; he’s held game nights and encouraged a book club and a run club in an effort to build those essential relationships. “I try to have events that they keep going to, so they can stay in touch and help each other get jobs,” he says. “I can do everything right for the students, but it’s pointless if I’m not doing it for the alums, too.”

Increasingly, the alums in question become part of that network without any prior connection. Sethi refers to a growing “honorary Hollywood Program,” mostly recent grads already working in the industry who heard about the program from friends, or who weren’t selected through the competitive selection process but still made their way to LA to give it a shot. If they’re Penn Staters and they’re willing to put in the work, they’re welcome.

Among the alumni with some connection to the program, Praveen Pandian might represent the most fascinating nexus—not least because, without knowing it, he anticipated the program itself. As an undergrad double-majoring in marketing and advertising/public relations, Pandian ’12 Bus, ’12 Com knew he wanted to find a way into the entertainment industry. He and Austin Sepulveda ’11 Bus began making connections with classmates who shared their Hollywood interest, and they started reaching out to—and often cold-calling—people in the industry who might be able to offer advice. In the days before the program existed, Pandian says, “the college was incredibly helpful in helping us network, but there was just no organized path to get to LA.”

They made their own path in the summer of 2011, flying to California to start building connections—and careers—in person. Pandian secured an internship with the marketing department at Walt Disney Studios, spent his summer learning and networking, and came back to campus for his senior year. As soon as he graduated, he headed back to LA, where he was hired by industry giant Creative Artists Agency. Looking back, he says, “It was definitely a grassroots thing—we took the initiative to start gathering as a cohort, meeting people and getting internships. We didn’t know what any of the jobs were. We had to get out here and figure it out.”

Fourteen years later, Pandian heads up the television literary department at CAA, a high-profile role in which he represents some of the biggest directors in town. He’s also the most recent graduate on the Hollywood Program board, and he takes pride in being able to provide the sort of inside track he graduated a few years too early to benefit from himself. A prime example, he says, is Bram Wallach ’22 Com, whom Pandian met when Wallach went through the program in 2022. Impressed by this “self-starter who went out of his way to network,” Pandian helped Wallach get his first job at CAA, eventually hired him as his own assistant, and earlier this year, provided a reference for a job with the Duffer Brothers, creators of the Netflix megahit Stranger Things. Now, Pandian says, “he has one of the best assistant jobs in the business.”

It’s exactly the sort of outcome Richards envisioned and Sethi works to facilitate: Motivated students making the best of opportunities created by alumni eager to share their success. Ten years in, the program making such connections possible shows every sign of being a long-running hit.