Back from visiting USC and four UC schools

havenoidea
Tue, 26 Mar 2019 19:14:41 +0000

We recently did USC and UCLA in the same day (kids did not sit in on a class). Impressions:

UCLA: Beautiful, big, grassy hills with kids lying out. “This is what I imagined a college campus would be like,” D (after touring USC). Organic. Bustling. Good food. Lots of kids milling about with signs for events, etc. Hard if not impossible to change your major to an impacted major (engineering, CS, ?).

USC: Trojan Network, jobs, jobs, jobs, who’s who who went there, matching perfect buildings, beautiful pavers with artificial grass patches (you’d look silly lying down here!), movers and shakers. Much easier to change majors, even into engineering.

Our impressions were also affected by the personalities of our respective tour guides, but their personalities seemed to match the schools. SC tourguide as a sophomore, double majoring, already has connections with top people in his field (PR/cinema) and internship, dressed for success. UCLA tourguide worked in dining hall and joined cheerleading (male, mention this only bc he was funny about how he barely had any competition) and was ecstatic to see a top math prof on campus.

Very different vibes. S liked USC better, daughter UCLA (though both thought the sidewalks were too crowded, lol).