I suggest you to check out “Live from Northwestern” series on YouTube. You will probably find some useful info there.
You can think of Evanston as a hybird of college town and suburb (a fairly urban one). It got lots of eateries and coffee shops. But it doens’t really have many bars or much nightlife. For that, you’ll need to go to Chicago. It’s very easy to get to Chicago with the subway and there are intercampus shuttles between Evanston campus and downtown Chicago campus.
I suggest you google map USC. It’s not in the safest part of the city. It’s not easy to get around without a car in LA.