As NMF and Presidential scholarship hopefull I can live at Birnkrant, but I would prefer to have A/C. Any recommendations for CS major looking to make friends and have an active social life that doesn’t involve Greek ? If I ignore A/C problem, is Birnkrant the best option?
Parkside Arts and Humanities is a suite based dorm ten steps from the main CS building and it has AC. I wouldn’t say it is more or less social however. Birnkrant is way across campus but is supposed to offer an outstanding experience overall. Tough choice.
My son is CS major that lived in Parkside A&S. It was fantastic, clean, modern with AC, which was a must for us. Beside the heat, it allows you to keep the noise out that you get with open windows. But if you don’t want to use it, open the windows. 
It is away from the other housing, but as gamergal27 says it is closest to the CS buildings, which frankly first year you can be all over the place so it doesn’t matter that much, but was helpful to him because he took a lot of CS/EE stuff first year. Then again, it is far from a lot of other classes. Trade-offs. The food is supposed to be the best dorm food, whatever that means, but that is what they say. As a note, a traditional dorm may always be more social than suite style, but for him, the group bathroom had zero appeal, and he didn’t want to chance a party dorm. They knew/hung out with a lot of other people from their floor, so it was perfect amount of social for him. Had a ton of conference room/private areas to retreat to study in.
The most amazing part of USC housing is their matching of room mates. All 8 in his suite were perfect. Similar and well match goals/lifestyles but different majors - just enough to keep it interesting. All STEM majors, but varied greatly within STEM. They remain best friends and future business partners, and are still living together just with an expanded group now. So A&S had a lot of all kinds of majors which was cool, but they tend to group a suite by similar majors.
Heads up - Parkside IRC - totally different, no one talks to each other there, not even hello in the elevator. Very odd.
Thank you everyone! Is it possible to keep windows open at Birnkrant? Also do majority of students from Los Angeles live on campus or commute?
birnnkrant is the best in terms of people. parkside is called “parkside darkside”, AC does become an issue but I’d still recommend birnkrant.
What does darkside mean? And the two Parksides are completely different, so which one?
There are a lot of great housing choices, but I know as many students that hated Birkrant as liked it, depends on individual. Decide what is the best fit for you - traditional (some hate a communal bathroom or like the social aspect), suite style (some love the private baths in the suite, but feel it less social), apartment style (independence but maybe less social), a dorm with AC - an absolute for some, not others. The amount of social desired for each person varies, but remember social is what you make it, not the dorm you are in. If you are close off, people will be closed off to you. Decide what is important for you, there will be great people in all of them. Thinking the best people are only in one dorm will lead to a very lonely and bitter existence. The several scholarship and non scholy students I know at Parkside AS absolutely loved it. They also have great attitudes about everything, that helps no matter where you live!