2016
Jonathan Arreola , MEd , made a career transition from mathematics to software engineering , where he builds and develops full stack web applications . Arreola lives and works in New York .
2017
5th REUNION It ’ s coming up at Homecoming 2021 this October ! To learn more and be a part , email Jenelle Dean ’ 05 at jmdean @ ucsd . edu
Jason Dorwart , PhD , has accepted a position at Hong Kong Baptist University as assistant professor . In summer 2021 , he and his family will move to Hong Kong from Ohio , where he has been a visiting assistant professor at Oberlin College . He is currently crowdfunding for a quadriplegic wheelchair to navigate Hong Kong .
2019
David Beale , Roosevelt , works as a facilitator for the Glow ! group prenatal care program in Fresno County , Calif ., part of a UC San Francisco study that aims to reduce preterm births and improve maternal health in marginalized communities .
2021
RECENT GRADS ! Your Year 0 Homecoming 2021 reunion starts this October ! To learn more and be a part , email Jenelle Dean at jmdean @ ucsd . edu
Up from the Mailroom
I ’ M A TALENT AGENT representing film directors , writers and producers . I ’ m also a partner and head of the motion picture department at my company , United Talent Agency ( UTA ). It was certainly a long path to getting there , though .
After UC San Diego , I started working at Smith Barney in La Jolla , a brokerage firm . I worked for a guy who was very much the Gordon Gekko type , with the great Glengarry leads on how to build a book of business . ( I know I ’ m mixing my film references , but bear with me .) I learned quite a bit about running a business , how to call people and establish a connection with them , and I liked sales and the fast pace of the job . But I eventually looked at that life and said — this is just not what I want for myself .
Along with weighing options like graduate school or an MBA , I happened to be reading a bunch of books at the time , one of which was called The Mailroom , which is about the first , biggest Hollywood agency , William Morris Agency . It gave me a real sense of what an agency does and how it is sort of the center of the ecosystem of Hollywood . I was an arts minor in college , so that world really appealed to me , and here was a role where there was sales involved but also a direct connection to the arts . You might not be an artist , but you got to advocate for them . So I went around trying to interview and get into a mailroom . Ultimately I got into UTA , which was a lot leaner and smaller at that time .
How the mailroom works is this : you ’ re literally delivering mail , but what you ’ re also doing is understanding who ’ s who within the agency , and you ’ re getting a sense of the studios in town , and more importantly , how information flows . This may be hard to
“ This may be hard to believe , but back then , there wasn ’ t much done through email , just a lot of physical scripts and things being sent back and forth .” believe , but back then , there wasn ’ t much done through email , just a lot of physical scripts and things being sent back and forth . You ’ d learn the names to know , and kind of through osmosis , you start to get an idea of how everything works .
Then you start to apply for assistant positions , which is basically doing everything an agent says they are doing . So you ’ re on every phone call , and if the agent says , “ I ’ m going to send you a script ,” or , “ I ’ ll set this meeting ,” you do that . And again , through osmosis , you ’ re understanding how an agent does the job , getting a sense of their instincts and manner . It ’ s a very specific system , the mailroom . It was really like a graduate school for me .
Of course , what I ’ m skipping is the hundreds of people who go through that process and never get to the next level . There are some Darwinian aspects to it , “ the strong survive ” sort of thing . But a lot of those people realize they want to go do something else , like work for producers or work at a studio . But there ’ s truly no better way of getting a real understanding of how Hollywood works .
Now 24 years later , what I love about an agent ’ s role in this business hasn ’ t changed at all . To be an advocate for artists , to represent and champion people you really believe in , and see their lives change — sometimes overnight , even — it makes the long journey to where I am today all the more worthwhile .
Jason Burns ’ 95 is head of the motion picture department at United Talent Agency ( UTA ) in Los Angeles .
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