Amy Wu changed her major five times. When she arrived at USC as a first-year student, she planned to study gerontology, but for Wu the study of aging soon got old. By sophomore year she was completely lost. That was until a friend in USC’s Themed Entertainment Association suggested she look into the brand-new major that the School of Cinematic Arts (SCA) was launching: themed entertainment.
Themed entertainment as a field is “the creation of an artificial environment where various elements bring to life a thematically driven story for immersing visitors in a strongly identified or branded setting,” according to Theron Skees, a veteran of Walt Disney Imagineering.
Wu, sitting outside of the George Lucas International Building, discussed her first experiences with the program: “I was worried it’d just be about theme parks.” Once she delved into her studies, Wu discovered that was far from the case. She said the program helped her not just develop her interests but expose her to subjects she never had an interest in prior. “Every discipline is possible in the world of themed entertainment, it’s just a matter of harnessing your abilities and figuring out what makes you tick.”
The themed entertainment major is not just new to USC but is an emerging field itself—there are few programs like it in the country. The major launched at USC in the fall of 2023, with only six students in its inaugural freshman class and 15 students in the program total, including Wu. Despite the novelty of the major, the interdisciplinary nature of the cohort-based program is what drew Wu in.
“My strong feeling is that we are a trade school in a sense, in that we are here to give students the ability to get a job and have a career,” said themed entertainment professor Joe Garlington. “Social skills are critical to success in this industry, so everything we do in all the classes is team-based.”
Throughout the 2022-2023 school year, students of the newly-forming themed entertainment program, in a class colloquially called “Golf,” came together to create an immersive mini-golf course on campus. The final product was the culmination of collective woodworking, mechanical engineering, visual art and storytelling.
“Through this process, I saw Amy grow into herself personally and as a creative, as she problem-solved and channeled her creativity to master her projects. I saw her grow into a great leader,” said Tayler Somerville, a former suite-mate of Wu.
“Our industry is an ‘industry of industries,’” Professor Garlington added. “The boundaries of the field are a little bit ill-defined, of course, but there are many ways to tell a story. The thing that distinguishes storytelling in our world from storytelling in other worlds is the use of physical space.” Space, sound, smell, density, flavor, color and light are all important factors students must consider when creating and developing immersive spaces.
Not only is Wu a pioneer in themed entertainment, but the cross-disciplinary complexion of the program sparked other interests for her, as well. Wu is the vice chair of development for ART/EMIS, a student-run multimedia organization as well as an assistant tech director for KXSC, USC’s globally broadcasted radio program.
“She has worked as a collaborative team member for so many projects now and it seems like the major has allowed her creativity to flourish and lead to projects that truly shine,” said Carissa Liu, a friend of Wu. Along with her B.F.A. in themed entertainment, Wu is pursuing two minors: designing products at USC’s Iovine and Young Academy and consumer behavior at the Marshall School of Business.
“Overall, I think [the program] has made Amy and others with interdisciplinary interests very happy intellectually and creatively,” said Lizzie Lee, a friend of Wu. The best part about the themed entertainment major is how each student comes from different backgrounds and expertise to “make something worth telling,” Wu said. For, after all, themed entertainment would not exist without stories worth telling.