<p>I know USC is a good school and it seems to me that top schools have rigorous classes. Is this true for USC? I don't want college to be a breeze nor do i want to subject myself to conditions suiting for a heart attack.</p>
<p>I have applied there for comp sci but even if i get in i probably won't be able to afford it so i need a good reason to justify all the money. thanks.
btw if you can recommend other alternatives(affordable-ish) let me know!</p>
<p>Depends very much on your major, and the courses you choose to take. Viterbi's engineering programs (including comp sci) are generally very rigorous and of excellent quality. None-the-less, it's still a very fun school to go to, and even engineers can have fun.</p>
<p>Sure you'll find Viterbi to be a lot of work and a bit stressful at times, but it's not going to give you a heart attack. Might be tiring, but not so much to affect your health adversely.</p>
<p>i haven't experienced the full engineering treatment yet (i'm a freshman), but it seems as though i'll survive fairly well. i just need to work a little harder and mess around a tad bit less ;)</p>
<p>and i'd say as long as you get all your financial aid stuff done properly and turned in before deadlines, USC will throw money at you. i'd say the good majority of people i know personally here are on grants, some far in excess of the cost of tuition. </p>
<p>my own grant with scholarship covered most of my tuition...i'd say what they gave me was more than a fair amount (without the scholarship, my grant would probably have been higher anyways).</p>
<p>I'm curious, do you find the 3.0 requirement difficult to maintain in engineering to keep your scholarship? Have you met people stuggling to stay at USC b/c of grade-dependent scholarships?</p>
<p>i honestly can't say at this point because i've only had one engineering course so far, but it has been a worry of mine. but i think i did fine in engineering, hopefully i'll get an A in that, the final grade still has to come in. my GEs, i'm almost sure i'll get A's in both of those, if not high A's. </p>
<p>but calculus...if i don't step up my game next semester, i may be in a little hot water...so i'm looking at least a 3.0 this semester, but calculus II will surely lower how much above a 3.0 it will be. i did screw around a bit this semester though and did less calculus "independent study" than i should have. that and the professor was ridiculously hard and didn't go out of his way during lecture to help (Lototsky).</p>
<p>Now that first semester is over, do phobos or other engineering majors have more to say about how hard it is (or isn't) to keep a 3.0 and their scholarships? or how many engineering kids lose their schoalrhsip or drop engineering to keep it?</p>
<p>viterbi hands out the most merit scholarships because it has the highest retention rate ~87%</p>
<p>My S & all the kids I know that went to USC have kept their scholarships. My S just finished his 1st semester in engineering. Several friends graduated with degrees in biomedical engineering & one in some other form of engineering. Another got his degree in chemistry from USC. All got good grades & were able to keep their merit awards.
Much depends on how well-prepared for college you are from your high school coursework. My S & his friends entered with lots of AP classes, especially in math & science, so they have a pretty easy transition to USC in terms of academics. Another friend's HS was not as academically competitive, but he still managed to handle the coursework at USC fine & got into our state med school where he's now in his 2nd year.
I agree that each student has to figure out how to balance academics & ECs; study groups are strongly encouraged, especially in engineering. There are a LOT of resources in the engineering school to help as well.
Good luck! You can ask the engineering school directly how their merit scholars do in terms of retaining their scholarships. I'm sure they'd provide answers--they've been very helpful every time I've contacted them.</p>
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viterbi hands out the most merit scholarships because it has the highest retention rate ~87%
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<p>Is that the retention rate of the scholarships or of all students in general?</p>
<p>At Orientation, they said that their standards for being admitted to Vterbi are the higher than many of the other schools/departments. They also have donors who donate specifically to their engineering school, which is why that school has lots of merit $ to distribute.</p>
<p>I know some freshmen in Viterbi who are also doing TO, the honors core curriculum, and seem to be doing fine. But just because the Viterbi requirements can be difficult than some other majors' doesn't mean that you can slack off in your GE's and the like.</p>
<p>the assistant dean said that 87% was for viterbi in general. i may have heard wrong because that seems high, but i do know that engineering freshmen are the most likely to graduate from viterbi (as opposed to transferring to marshall/annenberg/etc.) than any other students.</p>
<p>now that first semester is over...i won't say it was easy at all, but i wasn't studying my brains out on Friday and Saturday nights (towards finals, maybe a few Fridays heh). in my Intro to EE class, i got an A, and in my Calc II class i got an A (probably the hardest i've had to work for...ever!). and i got A's in my 2 GEs, so for my first semester i got a 4.0. (btw, i passed out of the chem requirement with AP, so i replaced it with another GE)</p>
<p>as the semester rolled along, i got a better and better grasp of what my classes demanded of me. if you're aware of what your classes are like and how you're doing in those classes, it's easier to determine how hard you have to work (given that you're honest with yourself about how you're doing). </p>
<p>i say that because sometimes studying for 3 hours on Friday nights in the first 3 weeks of the semester doesn't really help that much in the long run, and you end up missing a lot of experiences that make college fun. i will say though that i'll probably have to tighten it up a bit and work a little harder next semester, especially with Writing 140.</p>