Ranked ninth on the Princeton Review’s list of Top Dream Colleges, USC truly is the place everyone wants to be. Located in the heart of downtown Los Angeles, it is only a half-hour drive from anywhere you could wish to go in L.A: the beach, Beverly Hills, the Sunset Strip, or any of the numerous little hide-aways that only Angelenos would know.

In addition to these benefits, USC has also risen dramatically in academic standing in recent years, and is now no. 27 on the US News and World Report’s ranking for national universities. As an expensive, private university, USC may still retain the title “University of Spoiled Children” with some reason. But today USC is not just a school for wealthy partiers; those who match the stereotype better maintain a 4.0 while they’re at it.

I am currently double-majoring in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing, and International Relations with an emphasis in Security Affairs. Within both departments I have enjoyed a rigorous course load that is both stimulating and challenging. My experience with the General Education requirements has been somewhat less impressive, particularly in the mandatory science classes. However, USC’s policy of including top professors from every discipline in the G.E. staff makes for some truly amazing courses. Given the size of USC’s endowment, the school has literally been able to buy some of the best professors in the country, so this is no small statement.

In fact, USC only admits about 22% of applicants every year, and the majority of those students are in the top ten percent of their graduating class. These students can look forward to a place in the largest school, the College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, or one of the seventeen professional schools USC has to offer. Particularly elite are the USC Film School, the Annenberg School of Communication and the Marshall School of Business.

USC is quite a draw for international students as well, with fully nine percent of the sixteen thousand undergraduates coming from outside the country. These students provide a diversity that might otherwise seem somewhat lacking, as white non-Hispanics make up 50% of the student body, while black students are a mere 5%, Hispanics 13% and Asian or Pacific Islanders 21%.

Perhaps the most common complaint from students is in regards to the dangers of the surrounding environment. Although Los Angeles has channeled millions into building up downtown, with significant success, there is still a high level of crime in the area directly surrounding USC. This has had tragic consequences for students, with everything ranging from petty theft to rape and even murder in the last school year.

This is not to say that crime is unavoidable. The majority of criminal incidents occur late at night, when students choose to walk home instead of using the free student-run Campus Cruiser program, the USC tram or the Yellow Cab service, which allows students to pay from their discretionary account. Furthermore the Department of Public Safety has vehicles constantly stationed all around campus, as well as a virtual army of DPS officers on Segways patrolling the area. With all of these resources available, the primary prerogative for students is simply to stay informed and to use common sense.

There is a certain sense of moral obligation to dedicate at least a paragraph to USC athletics. The cult following Trojan football includes every alumni, every current student, and the entire population of Los Angeles, as the city has no football team of its own. There are entire buildings on campus filled with trophies and memorabilia commemorating our many Olympians, and the various fields, courts, pool and the gym are constantly swarming with athletes and casual enthusiasts of every description.

For those in search of culture, there is also the innovative Visions and Voices. This program brings exceptional talent to campus and exposes students unique projects in the arts for free. Some of my personal favorites from this year included the Trey McIntyre Project, a ballet that incorporated all forms of dance and music, a lecture by physicist Steven Hawking, a trip to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and a lecture by author David Sedaris.

Some students might not love USC, but I’ve never met them. I’m not in a sorority and I don’t play a sport, and “getting involved” for me means doing directed research with a professor. No matter what your goals or interests may be, USC has something for everyone, defying the stereotype while still living up to the hype.

Sources:

1.http://tinyurl.com/ca5xdd

2.http://www.usc.edu/admission/undergraduate/apply/fresh_profiles.html

3.http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/college/national-search/page+2

4. http://sev.prnewswire.com/education/20090325/NY8849525032009-1.html

Le Cours de Civilisation et Culture draws people from all over the world, and of all ages. As the most elite French language school in France, it is considered by many to be the best institution for those who wish to be fluent in French. On the day of inscriptions, I met students from Yemen, Sweden, Senegal and Brazil, all telling me in various degrees of broken French or English about their lives and why they came to Paris.

Some had been sent, all expenses paid, by companies in their home countries. Others came just out of high school to take a gap year from their primary studies; still others were there to complete a French major for their home universities.

In my class there are only six students. Our teacher is a middle-aged French man who likes to tell stories about his past wives (apparently there were four of them), flirt with the girls in class and talk about his motorcycle. He wears leather pants and likes to begin class with a half hour chat about what everyone did over the weekend, followed by a conversation about our various hobbies. Yet I’ve somehow learned a new verb tense and begun reading a play by Jean-Paul Sartre. As with most French people, he is laid-back and prefers discussions about Baudelaire to grammar exercises. But in the end, he gets the job done.

The other students in the class are as interesting as they are diverse. Sitting next to me is a British guy majoring in romance languages who came alone from London to Paris to study French for a year; he would most easily be defined by the word “posh.”

Across from us are two girls, a student from China and a 30-something Japanese woman whose company funded her trip. They are very friendly and insanely good at French. Both have been studying the language for only one year yet somehow have already managed to memorize every possible way of using the subjunctive–if they weren’t so nice I would probably hate them.

In the next row sit two university students, one Brazilian and one Italian. The Brazilian girl is shy and beautiful–a bad combination for this class. She seems to be in a constant state of mild shock as a result of our teacher’s many comments, but is really nice outside of the classroom. The Italian girl is majoring in philosophy and learning French in order to read the texts of the great French philosophers.

She has already learned German for the same reason, and can also speak some English. Coming from a tiny town in Northern Italy, she prefers the more relaxed environment of the South of France, but only in Paris do they have the libraries that hold the original texts of her favorite French philosophers.

Finally, directly in front of me sits an American woman who I originally thought to be around 18, but is actually 29. Her husband transferred to Paris for work and she needs to learn French before she can also get a job here.
And then, of course, there’s me–frantically attempting to complete my homework on the Metro on the way to school, then falling asleep during class to the constant amusement of my new British friend.

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Source: UWire. This article first appeared in The Daily Trojan, the student newspaper at the University of Southern California.

Read the next installment of Rosaleen’s adventure: “Kings, Castles and Catalan: The Art of Study Abroad Travel”. And check out her other stories about Study Abroad @ studentsineurope.com.