<p>My son will be a freshman in the Fall. We are from the Northeast so he will be going to school a long way from home! We are trying to figure out the housing situation and his odds of getting a good dorm. He did not apply until late November, and I know that housing is filled based on when the student applied to the University. Does anyone know anything about the Living and Learning Communities? He thinks he would like to live in Columbia, and I know the Healthy Carolina Wellness Community is there. If he chooses that my understanding is that he would get preference for Columbia. However, I am not sure what living with this community entails. Can you pick and choose what you do with these groups or is it an all or nothing environment? He is a pretty typical high school boy... plays sports, loves to watch and talk about sports, likes to hang out with his friends. He likes to go to parties and has a huge group of friends but my sense is he is not much of a drinker (hate to be naive but he is usually honest with us on these topics!) Doesn't smoke at all. I am wondering if it would be better to try to go for this dorm or try to connect with a like-minded roommate on Facebook or some other match service and just hope they get the dorm he wants. Ultimately, i just don't want him to go so far from home and feel lost!! Sorry that this is all over the place.</p>
<p>i should add, regarding the Healthy carolina community, that he likes his share of junk food, and i am sure he is not looking to give it up in college!!!</p>
<p>I’m not sure that housing is based upon the application date. I think it’s according to the housing application date (with housing deposit).</p>
<p>My son lives in one of the “living and learning” communities. I sorta pushed him into doing that, and while I don’t regret it, I didn’t realize at the time that it was costing me an extra thousand bucks per semester. He is staying in the music community dorm, which is adjacent to the horseshoe, within a 100 year old dorm building. The dorm is probably the most decrepid and tiny dorm at USC though it is an apartment style. He loves the dorm because of it’s location, and small size. The location is very beautiful, almost a tropical feel with a small outside seating area surrounded by tropical looking plants. Also, due to the small size of the dorm and dormroom, it’s not really a party spot. There’s not enough room for more than a few people in the dorm despite the fact that it is apartment style and has a small couch and a small kitchen. When it’s time for partying, he goes somewhere else.</p>
<p>The concept of the “living and learning” didn’t quite work out for him though. Not because it’s a bad idea, but just because my son tended to reject the idea of being assigned friends. He is convinced that almost every music student at USC is a dork, and to a some extent, that may be true. He very quickly made his own group of friends, mostly out of state students from a variety of dorms and has hung out with them much more than either of his roommates or anyone in his dorm. I suspect that most people have a different experiance, he’s just weird that way. My first year in college my roommate ended up being my best friend and party buddy.</p>
<p>In his living and learning community, you can most definately pick and chose what activites you participate in. For my son, that is no activities, but I have seen pictures of various music community activities being held outside of the dorm.</p>
<p>I know that a lot of students are happy to let luck select their roommates. It can be a new and exciting experiance. </p>
<p>The school does at least on occasion try to make logical roommate matches. Both of my son’s roommates are Music Ed students (as opposed to Music Performance) and both of them play brass instruments. One plays the same instrument as my son and they did the marching band thing together. The school of music had only accepted 4 freshman trumpet students, two of them come from a school that is percieved to be the “evil” rival (not really evil but you know what I mean) of almost every other high school band program because they have won the 5A state championship 7 years in a row now. My biggest fear was that they would put my son in an apartment with the two kids from that school and that they would gang up on him. As it turns out, they did put those two students together, but in a two person apartment, and both of my sons roomies came from other schools. I suspect that was planned, and well planned.</p>
<p>^It’s by Application to the University, NOT housing application.</p>
<p>The Living Learning Communities are a joke for the most part. They can be really awesome and are a great way to be really involved in something you love, but if you are a member of one and don’t care for the main topic, then it’s really not an issue. If your son wants to be involved, he will be able to, but no one is going to force him to do anything he doesn’t want to do.</p>
<p>I have a friend who lives in the “Green Quad” and she hasn’t been forced to go green or anything. </p>
<p>And I’ve definitely been to a party in Thornwell. You can have parties just about anywhere on campus. I will say that North Campus (Maxcy, Thornwell, and the Horseshoe) aren’t the party parts of campus, but that doesn’t mean they don’t happen.</p>
<p>If your son wants to live in Columbia, I would suggest putting down the LLC that is in there. They assign housing to the LLCs first. If he doesn’t get in that round, then he’d still have a shot at getting in generally.</p>
<p>Thanks so much, AU Girl and Imagep! That helps me alot!</p>
<p>Personally, I don’t think that living & learning communities are a joke, and I’m sorry that you feel that way AUGirl. I’m in the Capstone community and it has been really fantastic and I’m very involved in it. I also have friends who are members of the French house, International House (at Maxcy), and the Pre-Med/Pre-Health community. LLCs are what you make of them; you can choose to be as involved or as uninvolved as you want. If you utilize them to their fullest, though, they can be a really great outlet for meeting people with similar interests or majors- people who can guide you through your department.</p>
<p>They are what you make them. And the thing is, I think it depends on the community.</p>
<p>I know a couple of people who chose to live in a French House in order to speak French and were severely disappointed, because most people choose to live there because it’s a good location and apartment style- not to learn French. I have a friend who lives there and last semester she complained about no one speaking French ever. Now she has a roommate who is actually from Paris, so she is speaking more French.</p>
<p>I live in both the Spanish House and the Carolina Global Community (which will be the International House next year). While the CGC has fun activities every month that you can participate in, the vast majority of residents do not. Only one or two people ever go to the International Movies. Even cooking demonstrations only have a couple of people show up (where you can get free food!).</p>
<p>As for the Spanish House, only one person living in the Spanish House chose to live here, so no Spanish is ever spoken here. (Many of the residents, including myself studied other languages in high school including French, German, and Japanese). There is a Spanish Club once a week that meets in Maxcy, but many of the people who come do not live in the Spanish House. We have one native speaker in the entire community.</p>
<p>So when I say they’re a joke, I don’t mean that they’re worthless. It depends a lot on the LLC. For example, I’ve heard that Preston really is a very close-knit community. However, many of the LLC’s are not necessarily chalked up to be what the university says they are. Someone wanting to immerse themselves in Spanish is going to be rather disappointed when they get to the Spanish House and realize how few people speak it.</p>
<p>There are merits to living in LLC’s. I have met a few people from other countries, but for the most part they all become friends with each other, because I think they realize they’ll all be leaving at the end of the year.</p>