Is anyone considering transferring out of USC? Would love to open a discussion on this to find if anybody else is exploring this option currently.
I am a CS major at USC.
why do u want to transfer out?
@billybobby54 I have a lot of friends there, it is more about the culture and social environment here. I’ve found a lot of exclusivity and cliqueness; people form groups very fast. The Greek System is especially very snobby and fully of rich white business majors. Anyways not going to go into depth about this again, I already made a post.
The main reason I am transferring is purely academic. USC doesn’t have many classes in CS areas I am interested in (i.e. machine learning or networks). I also want more of an interdisciplinary focus which I can find more at other schools. I’ve even talked to profs at some of the schools I am applying to, and one of them from a top 15 university said he’d write a rec letter because he liked my rationale and my research interests.
So are you transferring out? You have posted about this several times, so it seems nothing is getting better? Good luck finding what you are looking for. btw, the Greek system at virtually every school is pretty much the same, a student either loves it or not. None of mine would consider it ever, but for some, it is everything. Go figure.
@blueskies2day I made this post to see if there were other USC people I could connect with in a similar situation, so I haven’t posted about this several times. Also I strongly disagree about the Greek System. The USC system is very exclusive and a lot less diverse than other schools. It is also a lot more intense. I know people who transferred from places with bigger greek systems (i.e. vanderbilt) and joined a frat at places like Columbia where Greek Life is a joke. Also a lot of schools have less exclusive greek systems - parties are open to people that aren’t in the frat. At USC if you aren’t a girl and you aren’t in a frat, theres nearly a 0 chance you can get into things.
OP, you are a scholarship student at USC per your other posts. As a transfer student you will not likely get as generous an offer at other schools. You will also likely have the same issues and complaints at any school you transfer to.
Beware of the fallacy of the pasture is greener on the other side.
My issues are as such: I am interested in areas like machine learning, data science, and networks. USC does not have many classes in these areas. Fact. Other schools do. I have problems with the curriculum as well - why isn’t there an emphasis on teamwork and practical applications starting in year 1? Northwestern has team projects in all first-year coursework and has all freshman CS majors work on a project with an organization in the community (“practical”). I haven’t done a single team project in my CS classes at USC, nor done much of anything practical.
In general, the idea of “interdisciplinary” study hasn’t manifested itself in the academics at USC. It’s there in some research, and I know since I do research at the intersection of CS and sociology. Schools like Northwestern and some of the Ivy’s have been focusing on interdisciplinary education for a long time, and it reflects in their academic programs.
Based on your logic, you seem to be saying transferring as a concept is misguided and everybody should be happy at their universities? Why do so many people transfer each year then? Why do schools even have transfer processes?
bottom line- can you afford to pay for a college education at another top private U?
Your scholarship will be history. …
Scholarship money doesn’t really matter to me. And why do you say I won’t be happy anywhere I transfer to? Are you stipulating all universities are the same? or that all universities are an equally good fit for every person?
@menloparkmom Yes. If that was an issue I would just transfer to my in-state university which would be cheap and has a top 10 CS program.
Sometimes schools aren’t a match for students.
Sorry it is not working out for you. My CS kid absolutely loves USC and has an internship that is out of this world this summer as do every one of his friends in CS, EE, CSBA, etc. So for them it is really working. It sounds like you really feel another school would be better and if the money thing isn’t a big deal, go for it! It is nice to enjoy saying where you went to college the rest of your life and it seems this may not be the case for you if you stay at USC. If you feel you have done all you can and the environment just isn’t a good fit, move on. Many transfer and some find what they are looking for, but they have to work at connections a bit harder when they get there, so just be ready to do that. Get involved wherever you go. Would have been nice if it was working at USC, but if it’s not, it’s not. Not every school fits every person. Life is short, and college is a one and done pretty much, so do what you can and want. Good luck!
@CharlesDavis I’m a Trustee Scholar here, and a part of a fraternity, so please know that I know what I’m talking about.
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You did not get three bids. Even if, during rush, you somehow managed to get three organizations to like you enough to offer you a a place at Blue Chip (which is unheard of), you would have had to choose ONE to attend Blue Chip with. That would be the only fraternity that would have offered you a bid. The other possibility is that you attended secondary rush, which is really only for people who are DESPERATE to get into Greek life (which you are adamant you are not). In secondary, theoretically, three fraternities could have offered you a bid (again, highly unlikely), but these would have been almost certainly developing or otherwise “bottom” houses because the others had filled all available spots.
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This is not an exceptionally exclusive Greek school. Fraternity life does have MANY white faces, yes, but it is exceptionally more diverse than most places (especially the south). My fraternity, in fact, is about 50% white, 25% Indian (yes, LITERALLY A QUARTER), and 25% everything else. Additionally, I’ve found engineering majors to be just as common as business majors, and these certainly do not make up any sort of majority. Finally, you can’t say that you could just go party at these places at your leisure. If you have friends you can ask them to give you a +1, but this is usually their only spot and we tend to give these to people who, you know, WANT to be there.
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You claim that USC is not interdisciplinary, and yet I have literally CREATED MY OWN MAJOR. If you want to be interdisciplinary, go talk to an advisor and and they will work something out for you. Otherwise, be a double major and stop whining that nobody is going to make a curriculum that forces you to tie it all together. That should be your job. If you want to be special, then there’s probably not going to be a pre-set path for you.
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If you have problems with a lack of teamwork in CS, why am I constantly seeing the CS majors on my floor either part of official groups or otherwise collaborating? It sounds like it’s more of a failure on your part than the university’s. And not participating in ONE group project? I literally just asked a friend on Messenger. They say you’re wrong.
I also seriously have doubts about your scholarship claim. There is no “top scholarship” because the Mork and Stamps are pretty much tied, but for different reasons. Additionally, because I live in the Birnkrant community, I know most of both the Stamps and the Morks. It is so rare that it’s really not hard to know all of them. And guess what? All of them seem like great people, and I really doubt that any of them would display your attitude. It is again possible you don’t live with the rest of us.
@ThisOneKid Couple things.
- I didn’t mean “top scholarship” literally. I am a trustee scholar not a Mork or Stamps. I also don’t live in BK. But besides the point.
- If you claim to know that classes use group work, please name 1 group project that USC integrates into the freshman CS curriculum? It’s all individual. Why would I lie about this? Im literally taking the classes and there’s no group projects. Don’t believe me? Check out the CS104, CS103 and CS170 course pages yourself.
- Let’s stop discussion about the Greek Community. As I mentioned I don’t care for it, nor do I even mention it as transfer rationale anywhere outside of this forum. My mistake for even bringing it up, more of a moot point if anything.
- Collaboration != teamwork. I mention teamwork as projects that are done in groups. When I first learned CS, I worked on a graphical game with 3 people. This was within the first 3 weeks. I learned more CS working on this than from a majority of the course. This is how people learn, working on interesting open-ended projects and learning how to collaborate on code with other people. I get USC doesn’t want people to cheat and individual work forces this, but I think THAT is hand-holding on USC’s part. So what if people don’t evenly distribute work? That’s their fault. Then they will fail the exams. No point making everything individual just to force individual work and learning. That’s catering the program to the kind of people who would use group work as a crutch to not actually do work.
- The way you work your claims makes it seem like you think I want to be hand-held. Not at all - I’m self-taught in CS. Clearly I’m at the opposite of the spectrum in terms of hand-holding. So get your facts straight. I just don’t want to waste time working on worthless class projects like “social network” for CS 103 that just have a bunch of bad skeleton code.
- Regarding Greek Life, I did get 3 bids. 2 were from bottom tiered frats that I just happened to know people in. The one I went to events for were for more of a middle-tier one (which I attended blue-chip for). So not lying here.
- You don’t seem to believe my scholarship claim. What proof do you want bro? That I interviewed for explore in February 2015, or that I still have my scholarship letter and you want a picture? I don’t really care enough to go through the effort of proving it to one person, but I definitely got a scholarship to this school, I gain nothing from claiming a lie on this forum.
Can a moderator close this thread or edit some of the posts? It’s clearly gone way off track from the original post. People like @ThisOneKid are just here to disparage OP.
@CharlesDavis The group CS projects start Sophomore year e.g., CS 201. Perhaps you can hold on for a bit longer. Since my son is a CS Games student he has even more interdisciplinary group projects including with Cinematic Arts, Thornton, etc. because he is required to take courses such as CTIN 488.
It is true that other schools my son was accepted to really focused on interdisciplinary group projects from the beginning; WPI comes to mind. But by the end of his junior year he should have a strong portfolio and extensive experience with group projects.
@CharlesDavis On an open forum you will get advice/comments that you do not want to hear. I suggest you move away from the keyboard and move on.
@GamerGal27 Thank you for the factual info - this is what i’ve heard as well. (Take note @thisonekid)
The CS games program seems excellent at USC, I know it is top ranked. But this is one of main reasons I am transferring, because I can’t find classes in my specific areas of interest in CS, including data science (non-existent), networked systems / social networks (non-existent), machine learning (only 1 graduate course), game theory / AI (1-2 courses i think). CS Games obviously has a ton of courses, which is great that USC has focus areas (others including robotics and security), just not my personal areas of interest.
@TomSrOfBoston I think there’s a difference between advice/comments I don’t want to hear and advice that is intentionally disparaging, or maliciously intended. Either way not a huge deal. My point was that the comments on this thread have gone way off the subject of my original post - asking whether anyone from USC might transfer.