I was awarded work-study, however that job alone isn’t going to be enough to cover the bills I’m going to have to pay while in college (long story).
Anyways, how hard is it to find an on-campus non-work study job? How about off campus? The only thing that scares me about the off campus idea is that I’ve heard that the area around USC is dangerous at night and sometimes public transportation can take forever.
Check classifieds of Daily Trojan online.
I wouldn’t be as worried about jobs in the immediate area off campus - most of them are going to be lousy - but you can definitely look both downtown and in Culver City / Santa Monica along the Expo Line. It’s only 2-3-4 (?) stops on the Expo Line into the 7th Street Metro Center in DTLA (downtown L.A.) which would put you in the center of the action there. In theory, you could also take the gold line up to Pasadena, but there should be enough decent part-time work in DTLA to help smooth your financial situation. You could also take a service job (i.e. restaurants) at L.A. Live although I suspect if you should be able to find something decent in downtown. Nowadays people know both the caliber of students matriculating to USC and how expensive it is, so I’m sure that with a little due diligence you’ll find some people who wouldn’t mind having you come in and work a few hours a week in their office.
Good luck!