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What To Learn

High School

What high school courses should you take if you're interested in this career? Get your answers from the Arts, Audio-Video Technology and Communications cluster Journalism and Broadcasting pathway.

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While there are no formal guidelines or specific courses of study for film critics, some education and a background in film studies, film history or a related area are helpful.

Although some employers look for a broad liberal arts background, most prefer to hire people with degrees in communications, journalism or English.

High school courses in English, journalism and social studies provide a good foundation. Useful college liberal arts courses include English with an emphasis on writing, sociology, political science, economics, history and psychology. Courses in computer science, business and speech are useful as well.

Once enrolled in a journalism degree program, a student can supplement their coursework by taking several film studies courses. Many of the best-known film critics actually have education or experience in journalism or have worked as professional journalists. This is the case for some of the most famous film critics around, including Roger Ebert.

"For people who are really into it, I recommend they either find a blog that will use their stuff, or they create a blog and start writing their reviews," says film critic Peter Howell.

"It really is something you hopefully get better at.... It is something you develop a knack for. It becomes more like second nature, so you just decide for yourself whether it's just something that you're momentarily interested in, or whether it's something that you really have a passion for."

Howell says young people can start building their film criticism skills today.

"What they should do is they should go see a movie, and they should sit right down and they should write a review of about 1,000 words," he says. "Because that's the real test of it -- to come right out of the theater and sit down and write your review, and you have to figure out what to say between 'It sucks' or 'It's great.'

"It's like, what's in the middle there?" Howell adds. "Anybody can go thumbs up or thumbs down, but it's the part in between that really makes a difference. And then you have to decide, 'Do I enjoy doing that? Is that something I want to do more of?'"

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