The University of Southern California

All I can say is don't buy any of the hype. This school is terrible; the student body is unbearable. DO NOT COME HERE. There are so many better options. Think about the state schools which are far more impressive and cheaper.

2nd Year Male -- Class 2007

Collaboration/Competitive: C, Useful Schoolwork: F

I was a linguistics and religion double major. Liked most of the teachers in the religion (Dr. Hock is AWESOME) and about half of the linguistics ones. People are fairly shallow, they put more value on having a ton of aquaintances and less value on having a few close friends. I only keep in touch with 2 people from SC and one of them, even though I love her, is a total flake. I tried some campus groups my freshman year, when I lived in campus housing, but they were filled with shallow people who I couldn't connect with. The GE classes are a ploy for money, I am all for a well-rounded education, but if that was what they really wanted then they would have allowed transfered GE classes, but they don't (my linguistic advisor actually told me it was because they lost too much money doing that). Some GE teachers would give you bad grades if you disagreed with them politically. I once had a TA tell the class after handing out a round of bad grades that she graded us lower than we deserved to encourage us to work harder! Too much beauracracy at the school too. Additionally, financial aid is terrible. I went to USC instead of another university that gave me an awesome scholarship which you keep unless you get bad grades, because at USC they paid full tuition for my freshman year, but then gave me nothing the next year because one document was in a day late. Now I am deep in debt and I don't have a very good job because the so-called Trojan family/network is non-existant in Washington, DC. I lived near campus (within about 2mi) and my husband and I's cars were broked into 5 times we had all our cds and radios taken (they weren't even nice radios, the cheapest ones you can buy in the stores), I was mugged at gunpoint and my husband was mugged at knifepoint and this was just walking from car to apartment (like 10 feet) at 8ish at night, and I took self-defense. So there is tons of crime and much of it is completely unpreventable. They tell you to travel in groups but then you just read about gangs mugging groups of people.

4th Year Female -- Class 2004

Campus Aesthetics: B, Useful Schoolwork: F

Honestly, I had a bad mind frame coming to USC. I am a transfer student and I worked hard but I was not accepted in to UCLA, and so I either had a choice between UCSD or USC. And I have to say that it was the biggest mistake of my life. The economics department is the biggest mess in the whole school. The former advisor, Marie Reyes, is an idiot and she does not know what is going on, and so they brought on a new advisor who is going to need time to understand everything. Honestly, for 30,000 a year I do not think I am getting my monies is worth at all. I have a 3.6 GPA, which is not that bad, but the classes are so full of BS. The GE requirement is a way to get money out of you. I am not into the party and I commute about 45 mins so I am not into the activities in campus that much. I am almost done right now with the USC course work and I have to say that I have had such a bad experience that if I had a chance I would start over from the beginning at UCLA and spend another 2 years there. Also what I think is the biggest overall joke in the school is the damn Foreign Language requirement, almost all schools have 2 semester requirement but for some reason USC is 3 semester and going in I did not know that and I honestly would have gone to UCSD instead of USC if I had known that I have to waste my time over this. It is annoying because Marshall School of Business does not need to do this requirement but almost everyone else has too. I know this is not Politically Correct, but the requirement is just welfare for the Spanish Department, the requirement is there so they have jobs. Cause with the GE requirement and foreign language requirement, you are literally wasting a semesters worth of classes on this stuff. In addition, the messed up thing is that I speak another language fluently but I have a hard time reading and writing and so I have to take Spanish, which I could care less about, while I guarantee that 70-90% of the faculty, and advisors themselves do not know any other language. However, as I said I am biased because I really wanted to go to UCLA and I regret it everyday so maybe you should look at another review for more accurate info.

2nd Year Male -- Class 2005

Faculty Accessibility: B, Individual Value: F