I attended a presentation by the head of security at USC. The security on campus and around the perimeter is very well designed and the students have many resources to feel safe. The students can also download an app that allows the security people to tract them and to ensure that you arrive safely to your destination. Most campuses have the posts with the blue lights for emergency, the app I was mentioning works like a mobile security post.
The area around USC looks very good. I visited with a preconceived idea that it would be a really bad area around USC. After my visit, I concluded that it is not true unless you start venturing far away quite a few blocks.
Since the Hotels around USC were booked, I ended up at a Ramada in downtown LA. It was scary getting there at 9 PM, however, when I vacated the Hotel at 6 am and drove back to USC, It did not look bad at all. Urban with many different looking people. The common denominators of most comments are: 1-You have be aware of your surroundings and be street smart. That means, be aware of who is walking behind and change directions if needed, 2-Do not display your valuable items 3- Do not cross into areas that look scary by yourself -utilize your resources if you may. That means USC security is great and available, use the mobile app to alert people where you are.
3-do not leave your possessions unattended 4- Make smart choices. Do you really need to explore by yourself to find out want is in the bad areas? and do not get drunk and decide to walk to the beach ( Unfortunately a Cal Berkeley soccer player visiting USC did that and was killed by a car crossing the highway.I am very sad it happened but the kids decision was terrible. 5- Do not be naive, this is an urban setting and you have to suspect that anyone may rip you off. 6-You are busy with school and honestly do you need to go pass several blocks? 7- The LA metro can take you downtown and soon to santa Monica from a nice station across USC,
Love, USC and I would attend that school any time. ( I am a UC Davis graduate)
Agree. DD stayed at BK for a Explore. She told me about different level of security at dorm, including finger scanned
Not sure I get the point of the post. USC is to LA as Yale is to New Haven, CT and University of Chicago is to Chicago, IL. The surrounding areas of the schools are urban blight. Plenty of crime and plenty of guns. Nothing in the short or medium-term will change that. All of these schools attract applications and students.
Yes, USC campus is VERY safe, I walk around alone at 3 AM all the time and I always feel completely safe. Security people are everywhere and they ID everyone entering campus after 9 PM. University Avenue and the area up until the Row (maybe even W 27th St) is also safe, but I would call Campus Cruiser at night, and we do get DPS reports of incidents in that area (though most incidents are west of Hoover/north of CarGar and Century). The area between Vermont and Fig with USC Housing is completely OK during the day, but like I said, use Campus Cruiser at night.
That said, the real problematic area is around the Lorenzo and West 27th Place. A lot of students live there, but there is no security around. Lorenzo has a bus, but it doesn’t work at night/you have to wait a lot, and if you’re getting off public transportation at night, it might not be the safest. For example, I was getting off the 460 bus (which is the bus to Disneyland) at 1 AM and I had to walk to the Lorenzo to call a Cruiser back to campus, and it only took 2 minutes, but I didn’t feel safe at all. Also, don’t really go South and West of campus. DTLA is close, but you have to pass through a sketchy area to get there.
USC does not offer more than one or two years of on campus housing. Then, you are on your own. Multiple students have been killed off campus in the past few years. Various other crimes near campus, too. Great if you feel safe. But the area is crime ridden. If you never had to leave campus, it would not be an issue. But you do have to live off campus eventually. USC does a great job making people feel safe, but reality is reality. Google it. Other countries have put the school on their “not safe” lists for a reason.
USC guarantees housing for two years, and much of the off-campus housing is directly across the street. You can also look at USC’s housing map to see how far off campus you can go and still be within the DPS patrol area (I think it’s something like a three-mile radius of campus) USC is in an urban area, so it’s not in a bubble, but everyone has a different level of comfort. My family feels perfectly safe in the area, but we get that others may not. I live a bridge and a hop away from UC Berkeley, and they have the same crime issues, but I love that vibrant and lively area too!
Just within the last 4 years:
April 11, 2012: USC graduate students Ming Qu and Ying Wu are shot to death while sitting in their car approximately 1 mile from campus.
October 31, 2012: Brandon Spencer shoots four people outside a Halloween party on the USC campus.
February 12, 2014: A male victim is shot in the back at 57th & Hoover Streets and drives to USC Gate 6 for assistance.
July 24, 2014: USC graduate student Xinran Ji is beaten to death by four teens with a baseball bat as he walks from campus to his apartment.
February 5, 2015: Dr. Raja Fayad is shot to death on the USC campus in a murder suicide.
The sad reality is the USC campus is not in a very good area.
Just for clarification…
Dr. Raja Fayad was shot at the University of South Carolina NOT the University of Southern California.
For clarification: You can live in USC housing more than 2 years- especially if you are not picky and take any assignment. D’s upper class lottery number was almost the worst possible- she was in the last hours of the last day of the housing draw. She still got an assigned slot in USC housing. She decided to live off campus in Gateway instead- which had its own pros and cons.
There was a huge housing shortage this year, USC Housing filled up on the second day of sophomore lottery I believe, so the best thing the rest of the students could do was sign up for the waitlist. That should change with the Village opening, though.
There are a lot of non-USC Housing options available, though, and some of them are cheaper as well. Gateway, Tuscany and Icon Plaza are across the street from campus, and the Lorenzo and West 27th Place are a bit further away, but a lot of people live there anyway. And there are also people who choose to live on the Row, or in marching band houses, or in regular houses around campus.
USC is located in the middle of Los Angeles, so yes there is crime. But despite the terrible tragedies involving the graduate students, the neighborhoods surrounding both USC’s campuses are not the lawless, gun toting places some posters would have you believe. Crime happens everywhere - even nice neighborhoods (a student was killed in an apartment next to UCLA just last year). In fact, google most dangerous colleges and you will see USC doesn’t appear in any of the lists.
No one is denying that crime exists around USC, but the reality is that the vast majority of students will never have a problem their time there.
This is such an outdated argument. Duke, MIT, Yale, Vanderbilt can all be found on Most Dangerous Colleges lists. UCLA is on a highest crime list. The other USC seems to have more big crime, Virginia Tech - don’t even need to discuss all that bad stuff there. Point is, things happen everywhere. It is no secret that USC has a working class and questionable area around it, but it is also only 2.3 miles to the Staples Center and LA Live where many sporting events, concerts, red carpet Hollywood and world events are held, and I don’t see those being cancelled because of all the danger. I don’t hear of people being kidnapped when walking a couple blocks to the magnificent LA Coliseum for football games. So if someone wants to live in a bubble and not attend any of these schools or USC because they are dangerous, that is the limited life they choose to live. I think college is good time to learn how to navigate in an urban area so when you take your first business trip solo to NYC, you don’t end up in the Hudson River.
Or the bottom of the subway steps.
Stop fear-mongering. USC is relatively safe, and not all of the past crimes represent the actual level of safety at USC. I think three of the deaths mentioned above were international, graduate students who were clearly not very street smart based on their actions (roaming a street not directly near campus past midnight…). USC is quite safe, and in fact its reputation for being unsafe has led to a lot tougher security than at other campuses (finger scanning, closed campus at night, the free Uber rides by campus security, etc.) I agree with above posters that learning how to be street smart is an important part of your education.