I would appreciate your thoughts and opinions on a few things.
a. What would form the meat and potatoes of a first year student at the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, course wise ( Will first year consist of anything other than general or core requirements ) ?
b. Are USC academics what you’d call rigorous and is the curve as unforgiving as say…UC Berkeley?
c. What would you recommend for a student wishing to maintain a high GPA during freshman year?
d. Do grading yardsticks differ wildly across courses as some people maintain?
e. Do TA’s conduct an inordinate amount of freshman classes?
f. Am I right in anticipating that USC will provide a greater challenge w.r.t social (dis)orientation for an International Student?
Specificities are always better.
Be liberal in your advice. No one has been more clueless that I am right now.
a) What is your major? Each major has advisors who help you figure out your schedules. In most there are courses in your major that comprise some of your first 2 semesters. For undeclared majors, they may take a lot of GEs but also classes in potential major field of interest. Those who may want to transfer to Viterbi have req’s as well as the Film School (SCA) so it will vary.
b) Academics are rigorous, but again, it varies by major/School. There is a lot of help for students seeking it at USC.
c) Students who are focused on getting a high gpa at USC need to meet with their professors, show up to class, do all the work, and work hard. Simple. 
If you come from a HS that was very rigorous and grade-deflated, you should do very well at USC. If you came from an easier grading school (one with extra credit, re-grading on quizzes, grades on homework used in course grade, etc–all means to helping boost final grades), you may be surprised at just how hard USC is. Not too hard, mind you, but real work must be done in order to succeed. You will need very good writing skills, no matter how tech your major may be.
d) They don’t differ wildly, but it pays to check Ratemyprofessor no matter where you attend college to find out how certain professors/instructors view grading. And pay attention to the syllabus to see the weighting of various component grades.
e) In larger classes (for example, intro classes in certain majors and some GEs) you will also have small discussion sessions of usually no more than 20 students once a week. These are led by a TA. They are available to meet with (I recommend this!) and will be grading your essays. The TAs use grading metrics provided by the professor. If you attend their discussions and follow their guidelines for essays, etc, you should thrive.
f) USC is proud of its diverse student body–with a large international populations. In addition, L.A. is a very diverse city. Have you visited campus? I hope you get the chance. With many cultural groups for international students, it should be very easy to find a comfortable social life right away.
If you are choosing a school for pre-med (for instance), a private school like USC may give you greater flexibility in getting the schedule you need, greater chances to make close relationships with professors (for future LoRs) and get some amazing research opportunities as soon as first semester freshman year. But in general, if you are serious about academics, you will thrive at USC, which may tend to be a little less cut-throat in atmosphere. Best of luck.