It's an opportunity the students enthusiastically take advantage of. Every piece of equipment is out, not just for weekends when most people do their shooting, but also for every week. It's a very motivated school. The undergrads and graduate schools alike do an incredible amount of production. Unlike most film schools, even those with top reputations, SDSU encourages all students to produce films as soon as they are ready.
Instructors emphasize hands-on learning, with success and failure being their mentors.
A lot of schools deal in theory and they'll watch films and learn about films. But because of the restrictions of money, equipment and time they'll just talk about them and try to understand them instead of actually getting into them. Some schools like USC and UCLA have programs set up where they only make a certain number of films a semester. They'll vote on a certain film to make and then people work on different facets. It's completely up to you, from beginning to end, to complete your project.