Students attending Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia, are expressing discontent at the university’s film curriculum.

“Most of the classes here are about film theory and involve analyzing movies. There aren’t that many actual production classes,” said Drew Alexander, a junior majoring in Film at Georgia State.

This, according to Alexander, is particularly interesting because Atlanta has developed a robust film scene in recent years, as more and more production studios are shooting their films here.

CNBC reports that 245 films and TV shows were shot in Atlanta between July 2015 and June 2016. This number is estimated to grow in 2017.

“It would be pretty cool if we could go to some of those productions as students and see what the process is like, for a more hands-on experience,” said Alexander.

“Baby Driver,” released on June 28, 2017, was shot in large part on Georgia State campus.

“They shot it so close to home,” said Alexander. “I’m surprised GSU didn’t take the opportunity to get students involved with that. It was such a cool thing to see.”

Georgia State offers a wide variety of classes and majors for its students, including a film production course. According to the course description, it’s designed to teach “basic editing technique and dynamic camerawork as a means to develop directorial vision,” but this production class is only open to seniors, and the problem is amplified because the course only lasts for one semester.

“I won’t be able to work behind a camera until I’m a senior,” Andrew said. “I wasn’t expecting it to go like this when I came to State.”

Members of the university’s film department are conflicted on the matter.

“The film faculty is a little slow,” said Shirlene Holmes, a film and theater professor at Georgia State University. “Atlanta’s making all kinds of goodies now, but we haven’t quite caught up to them yet.”

It’s a plausible explanation. Georgia State University’s film department could simply be behind on the times, unprepared for the sudden development of a thriving film scene in downtown Atlanta.

“I’m not in charge of how we run the program, but I imagine it’s quite difficult to change the way we teach it. It must be a long process,” said Holmes.

This “long process,” however, is leading to a dissatisfaction among film majors like Alexander, who feels as though he’s been shortchanged because he hasn’t learned the skills he was hoping to acquire through Georgia State’s film program.

 “Our curriculum is more about the art of movies because that’s all we’ve known here,” said Holmes. “Now that more people are coming here to make movies, I think we’re going to have to change how we’ve been offering this major.”

But Holmes is only a professor at the university—according to her, she’s not high enough on the ladder to change how Georgia State implements the film program. That, she says, is up to the students.

“If enough students can get the discussion going, I think it could create a change in the department heads,” she said.

In the meantime, students like Alexander will have to settle for Georgia State’s current offerings.

“I just wish they could readjust the curriculum so that it represents what Atlanta is becoming,” he said.

According to Alexander, the university’s inability to change and stay with the times is its primary weakness.

“I love being a film major, but I hate it sometimes. It’s frustrating because I feel like I could be doing more on my own,” Alexander said.

But at the same time, Holmes says the material that students are learning is vital to eventually learning the process of making movies on their own.

“What we teach is like a gateway,” she said. “Once you finish the major, you can go on and make movies on your own and teach yourself. If you really wanted to learn how to make a movie, you could go to a film school that specializes in that. There are different schools that specialize in different things.”

This brings the university to a crossroads. Should Georgia State amend the current film curriculum to be more representative of the city, or should it stay the same to guide students through the process of independent learning? Students like Alexander would like more variety within the program, but professors like Holmes don’t necessarily agree.

Either way, it appears someone will lose. If the students had their way, they would learn the craft of filmmaking without the lessons in theory and history. But if the program stays as it is, students could learn the philosophy of film to later apply it in their own work.

“It’s complicated,” Holmes said. “We need to change, but not at the expense of the quality of the content.”