Obligatory photo with Tommy Trojan.
After waking up for approximately the fifth time, and still finding that the digits on the iHome begin with 03, I decided to give up sleep for the day. It was clearly not working out. Instead, I had the marvelous idea to watch British YouTubers vlog at Venice Beach. In light of the previous day's events - not a great idea. Anyway, watching vlogs, staring at the parking structure outside my room and reading through the spring class schedule at USC somehow managed to take away 4 hours of my life, so soon enough it was 7 a.m. and time to get up.
My plan was to check out from the Radisson at 9, and arrive on campus by 9:30, which was the time the registration was set to begin. Ahem, I'm not too great with getting ready in the morning (mostly due to my eternal dissatisfaction with my hair, which I happened cut by 9 inches 2 days earlier) and I also forgot to hang my
After looking through the drawers three times and taking five pictures of every single piece of furniture, I finally took off, down to the reception, got my $100 deposit back, and off I was to USC. That's right, I was about to step onto the campus I had been dreaming about for the past five years. And it was intimidating.
It was intimidating, but also incredibly beautiful. All those buildings I saw in pictures - the Von Kleinsmid Center, the Doheny Library, but even Birnkrant Residence Hall - materialized in front of me, and instead of being underwhelming the way I thought they would me, they all managed to blow me away. I mean, we all think promotional photos and glossy brochures are filled with color-corrected, over-edited photos that have the pure intent of luring people in, but that's not the case with USC. The University of Southern California is even more stunning in real life.
Honestly, I almost got lost, since I was so busy looking around campus that I probably missed about three of the arrows saying EXPLORE that were supposed to lead me to check in. But I somehow got there anyway, and was greeted by an incredibly friendly & enthusiastic (this just about describes everyone I met) Theater major girl, who took my luggage and led me to check in, where I was given a free T-Shirt, a name tag and a folder that completely singled me out as an Explore student, but contained the campus map and program so necessary for the day. They also paired me up with a girl called Joanne, as we were both there on our own.
I have no idea what that Xxii was doing there...
The first program we took part in was the campus tour, the best part of which was our tour guide, Maddy, walking backwards. Anyway, she basically told us how back in 1880, USC had one building (now Alumni House), and the rest was all mustard fields, but then the university gradually started growing, and now it's midst one of its biggest ever projects, University Village. She also told us about the rivalry between Anna Bing and Eileen Norris and the inverted fountain resulting from it, the USC Instagram spot, and about the one person who actually joined the other tour group when the opportunity was given. And about a lot more, of course, but I won't spoil it for you - after all, who knows, you might end up visiting me there one day!
Next up was the USC Bookstore, which Joanne and I visited with two other girls - another Joanne and Alyssa. The bookstore, well...it's full of USC merch. Seriously, not just baseball caps and T-Shirts, but fuzzy socks and bobblehead dolls and bamboo salad tongs, and - as a prospective Trojan - I was inclined to buy all of it, even after seeing the hefty price tags. Yet it is in these moments that I appreciate my indecisiveness, thankfully, so I ended up leaving with nothing more than a key chain and kitchen magnet. And I feel like I made the right decision.
Following our bookstore adventure, we took part in a neighborhood bus tour, in one of those cool USC buses...
...with the coolest tour guide in the world, who berated everyone who had never been to In-N-Out Burger before - me included - and basically only talked about food. Well, mostly at least. Anyway, I couldn't really get that much out of the bus tour, but if I had to pick my favorite part of the 'hood, I'd pick the Greek Row. It was like a scene out of the movies...
After the tour, we had an hour to eat, so we decided to go to this "hidden gem" restaurant on campus, called Lemonade (it's actually a chain, but I didn't know that back then...). Erm, I guess the admission counselor guy we'd asked told all the Explore students about his secret place to eat, because by the time we arrived, Lemonade seemed not so hidden. And most people there wore name tags and were carrying folders around. Aside from that, though, food at Lemonade was perfect. I also tried red velvet cakes (you know who you are, thank you for the suggestion!), which I've been trying to find ever since in Hungary. So far, I have failed.
This is where USC students eat. For real.
Lunch was followed a Thematic Option presentation, which is basically a reading and writing heavy honors alternative to the general education curriculum. I, personally, have decided to apply and am struggling with the application questions ever since ("What do you feel ambivalent about?"), but Joanne virtually ran out after hearing the words "reading" and "writing" so many times. The guy giving the presentation was pretty funny, though ("Ask a question! Any question! Even what USC stands for!" or "That's why the graduate employment rate is so high here! USC just hires everyone after commencement!")
And now comes the best part...the Welcome Presentation, held at the Bovard Auditorium! I'm going to summarize it in bullet points:
- Kirk Brennan, the Director of Admissions, is the best. And he's a pretty avid Twitter user.
- Miloni Gandhi, the Associate Director of Admissions who admitted me, welcomed me personally on stage, and I even had the chance to wave at her & she waved back and it was perfect.
- In the application, we had to describe ourselves in three words. Here are some examples: worthy, of, admission; "very weird" as one word; "quirky", written about 50 times (for the record, I think one of my words was "scripturient")
- Best invention, according to two admitted students: the Common Application *facepalm* (I put the toothbrush, though, so I'm not judging)
- SURPRISE PERFORMANCE BY THE TROJAN MARCHING BAND!!! And the admission committee just started dancing out of the blue! And we all had to hold up the victory sign. And everyone check out the marching band!
The Kids Aren't Alright
When this was done, I was matched up with my host, Megan (shoutout to Megan!), who has the best shoe collection in the world and is also a Critical Studies major. We then got my luggage, dragged it across campus, went up to her dorm room, then went on another tour around campus (the fountains! the fountains!). Oh, and we also had dinner at the main dining hall in between, and I had a milkshake (called Chocolate Sunscreen) at Ground Zero, an amazing performance café with live music. And I also met lots and lots of people and had an amazing time, and proceeded to fall asleep at 8 p.m.
So many fountains.
The Traveler, USC's official mascot.
Random campus photo.
The rest of the night is vague...Megan went to the library, I slept on the floor in my sleeping bag, I began re-reading my application and realized that I forgot everything I knew about post-modernism, and...and...
TO BE CONTINUED
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