much wiser to have a separate department, and the way
we’re educating, there’s definitely no way to lump that
in with the costuming department.”
Although there is some overlap between the program
and a cosmetology school, Meyer explained that there
are a lot of things, on each side, that are quite different.
For one, cosmetologists need to know a lot more about
new and trendy hairstyles, while the UNCSA program
focuses more on period pieces. “We do some hairstyles
on the human head, but mostly we’re styling wigs for
period accuracy,” Meyer said, adding that for them the
term “period” means 90’s back. Meyer added that they
do have quite a few students who have their cosmetology
degrees before entering or who get them after leaving.
He noted that although there are quite a few differences
all of their students note enough overlap that they breeze
through cosmetology school afterwards if that is the
path they choose. While speaking with students later,
one who is a trained cosmetologist noted that having
her license before starting didn’t give her as much of an
advantage as we might have thought. It did allow her
some insights her classmates did not have, but she also
noted that the biggest thing her license gave her was
a constant reminder that many of the things she was
doing with wigs she could never do on an actual human.
UNCSA Set Students up for Success
Students from the program have a very impressive
96% job placement rating, and two graduate students
we spoke with mentioned they were being overwhelmed
with calls to interview. Meyer and Schanes said that
students from the program find work easily throughout
the industry thanks, in part, to the UNCSA name. Their
students go on to work on Broadway and Saturday Night
Live, and many do freelance work with great success.
Schanes and Berson are actually both graduates of the
program and had worked at Saturday Night Live and
at Meyer’s medical wig company, respectively, before
heading back to teach.
What makes the UNCSA program stand out? Well
for one it is one of very few programs in the country
that runs as a stand alone. The professors also note that
their approach is quite different from their competitors.
“We’re focusing on the entire character with each
application. For instance, when you learn the trade of
ventilating or building a wig you start out very slow,
but you have to complete an entire character with
each application,” Meyer explained, “So one of the
early applications is learning how to ventilate and then
building mustaches and facial hair. That, in turn, will be
turned into a full costumed and wigged character. So the
students always have to think about the full character.”
Students Allison Burkholder and Caitlin Molloy, who
are graduating from the undergraduate and graduate
programs respectively in May, spoke with us about their
experience in the program. Burkholder started her work
in makeup in highschool as part of the theater department.
“I stumbled across this school in a magazine. My mom
was very adamant that it didn’t matter what I did but
Professor Holland Berson doubles as a mold while a student
takes a plaster cast of her ear.
Graduate student Brittany Rappise gives us a tour of the
prosthetics de partment including a look behind the scenes of
an alien she’s building for a show titled Risk.
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