This should be a red flag to anyone studying film at Columbia. How much can your degree possibly be worth if your department chair can't sell a TV pilot without shaking down a former student to jump-start his own career?
US film schools are more like the shady private film schools in Europe, which focus more on practical tasks and where you have to pay everything by yourself or by external sponsors. Teachers are horrible. A bit like in art schools or theatre, bit more extreme on the financial side. Less harassment though.
I mean, in Vienna (Haneke) they only take about 8 a year, sometimes only 2. They take only the best, where they see they will make it.
Majoring in film making, writing, and most non-stem degrees is a quick way to be deep in debt working minimum wage jobs. Even business (my degree) is a waste of money for most kids.
I am telling my kids to major in computer science or architecture, then they can mess around with fun stuff in their free time.
It then becomes nearly impossible (for me, anyway) to disassociate what you do with who you are. When times are rough, it's personal. When mistakes happen, it's personal. And when you score a big win or are sitting atop an awesome opportunity... the dial just gets turned up another notch.
Taking up gardening (in truth, being taken up by gardening) has been a huge sanity saver, but it's still hard to not look back and feel like I lost my way over time: what was an insatiable curiosity gave way to the expediency of being a paid performer. I still love it, but just not like before, especially after the shift ends.
I get what the quote is trying to imply, (and why) but it's totally backwards.
Obviously this is just anecdotal and probably changes at the Olympics levels and other places where the learner competency and affinity is already high.
It's not limited to the film/movie world either... this is the unfortunate truth of most MFA programs: they don't launch careers, unless you're looking to become a MFA teacher yourself.