Fostering Intellectual Growth and Lifelong Bonds
Beginning in the fall of 2012, each USC freshman is welcomed into a Residential College – specially designed programs to give new Trojans a built-in community from the moment they arrive. These Residential Colleges offer an experience far beyond rooming in residence halls. These cohort experiences allow students to meet and learn from others with different interests, backgrounds, academic pursuits and experiences, talents, and goals – people they might not otherwise meet in classes or extracurricular activities.
What’s more, some of the university’s most respected faculty members and their families live with the students in these Residential Colleges, taking personal interest in the academic careers of the students within their college. In addition to providing intellectual leadership, these faculty members coordinate and host academic and non-academic extracurricular activities with faculty, guests, and visiting scholars. These events include programs developed in-house at USC as well as in collaboration with other campus units and organizations throughout Southern California. Example activities that are held throughout the school year include seminars, concerts, lectures, poetry readings, recitals, theatrical productions, scientific experiments, reading groups, field trips, and other recreational, cultural and artistic events.
Because USC’s Residential Colleges combine the personal attention, support, and family-like atmosphere of a small college with the extensive resources of a major research university, they are precisely the kind of program that sets USC apart as exceptional.
USC’s Residential Colleges also foster the success of students during their time at the university: increasing aesthetic, cultural, and intellectual values in students as well as gains in independence, tolerance, empathy, and interpersonal skills. Residential Colleges are also the ideal forum for the blossoming of friendships, professional associations, and most enduring relationships.