TAMPA, Fla. — Most college students return to campus on Monday after Thanksgiving break, and at USF, there has been an increase in enrollment, and potential jobs, in one particular industry — videography.

This past semester the university was gifted a new, state-of-the-art studio called the “Vu Studio” and it's helping prepare students even more for their future careers.

Riley Raimondo is a sophomore at USF and he’s one of the first students to take the Vu Studio class. “I love video production, and everything about being on camera.”

Riley is majoring in Mass Communications with an emphasis in Video Production and he said while videography has always been his passion, now he hopes to make it his career.

“It's something I've had a passion for, for a long time.  When I was in high school, I did the news at the little news station we had in high school, and I came to USF and started with this class. I've learned so much this year,” said Riley.

On this particular day, Riley and his classmates shot and produced a music video for a local rapper in the Vu Studio. Diamond Vu and Vu Studios gifted the university the state of the art, virtual studio. Students go out and shoot the video to play on huge LED screens, then they virtually transport their subject to wherever they need to be, without ever stepping foot off-campus.

“We've done hype videos with athletes who come in, musicians where we do music videos, we've done some motorcycle scenes where we have the person act like he's riding and we put footage we've gotten from out on the road and we'll make it seem like they're in their real environment,” said Riley.

Ryan Watson, who is a USF graduate himself, and now the instructor of this course, said in the past year, enrollment in his video production classes has skyrocketed, and he currently has more job offers than students because there’s such high demand for videographers.

“The video industry has picked up beyond anything we've seen in quite some time, COVID is in large part responsible for that web meetings, filming education videos, stuff like that, there's been a real need for that,” said Ryan.

And now, Riley is ready to help fill that need.

“We’re in the age of social media, I think everybody knows that now with Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, being a content creator is really important because even if you're someone not doing content creation, even if you're a realtor or somebody that has a business if you can promote it in a way that people will see it on social media that's how you get more business,” said Riley.

USF is the only university in the state with this type of technology.