<p>I have encouraged my daughter to sign up for a learning community, as she is undecided in her major and doesn't know anyone going to USC. Just last night she expressed concern that perhaps learning communities were not the "Cool" thing to do and I have forced her to be with a bunch of social misfits....Sigh.... I'm just trying to help. Any scoop out there on learning communities?</p>
<p>I'm curious if anything in particular gave her the impression they're not cool? :) The Learning Communities are for people who aren't sure of their majors, but that doesn't equate with being a social misfit (grin)...to the contrary, it's a great way to meet people and start to have a social life. It's a <em>huge</em> school and a lot of students don't know a soul when they start attending. My daughter signed up for numerous events at the start of her freshman year, like Friends and Neighbors Day and the scavenger hunt, but she found that she wasn't seeing the same faces from event to event, so unless you really hit it off immediately with someone at an event, it was hard to get past superficial acquaintanceship. The LCs give you more time to get to know a group of people, starting with a lunch together during Welcome Week, and those people generally have a little more in common with you if you've signed up for two of the same classes. Along with your dorm, other classes, work study, etc., it's one more building block in "making a place" for yourself socially at USC.</p>
<p>As I've written here in some other posts, my daughter had fun being in an LC -- so much that as a sophomore she was a "peer mentor" for the same LC group, available to answer freshman questions and attending all the group's events. She loved the free events (Dodgers, Kings, CURTAINS, WICKED, etc.) and got to know some people. She also enjoyed the special lunches and dinners with the professors.</p>
<p>Your daughter really can't lose signing up...for starters it simply means that she will be grouped with the LC people in the discussion section for the two classes (which gives her a chance to get to know people a little better since she'll talk with them for two classes, not one). She'll be knocking off a couple of her GE courses she needs to take care of anyway. The free cultural events are strictly optional, if for some reason she doesn't hit it off with her group and want free tickets & transportation to sports and the theater.</p>
<p>Good luck to her, I hope whatever she decides that she has a great freshman year!!</p>
<p>How do you join a learning community? Are Engineering majors welcome?</p>