<p>USC Alumni,
What have you been up to?
What was your major and what are you currently up to now?
I'm a prospective transfer who is very much interested in USC especially where grads go after graduation.
Thanks!</p>
<p>Hi! I’m not an alumni, but my aunt, uncle, mom, and dad went, so I can tell you what they ended up doing after USC:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>My aunt graduated a long time ago, (honestly, I’m afraid to ask her because I feel like its rude to bring up her age- she’s a sensitive woman). My family is not really close, but she’s in her early 30s, I don’t remember the exact number. She majored in political science. After USC, she worked for a small technology start-up that imploded during the boom, then worked at another technology firm, and then went to Columbia for business school. After CBS, my aunt got a job working at a hedge fund specializing in real estate debt in New York City. Her husband works at Goldman Sachs (UC Berkeley grad in CompSci). They both do very well, and she makes just as much as he does, and live in a very nice apartment in Chelsea that I often visit. They have two daughters. She is currently looking to move to Orange County, CA, probably working for a large bond trader, and has connections here in California she credits USC with giving her. She loved USC and credits it with helping shape her into who she is currently and still keeps in touch with many of her Trojan friends.</p></li>
<li><p>My uncle is younger than my aunt. He graduated USC class of 2008 a civil engineering major. He worked at a construction company for a year and is currently finishing up his third year at UCLA law school (he sold us out). He lives in LA, and will probably go back to the company he previously worked for, not in a law capacity, but as a general manager (he decided he didn’t like law although he has very sharp mental skills). He loved USC. I asked him if he preferred USC or UCLA and he said that he liked USC much better by far, but says that he might just be surrounded by “a-holes” (his word, not mine) because he’s in law school and concurrently in Westwood. The company he is returning to will be paying him a salary that is near top 1% because they really want him back.</p></li>
<li><p>My dad is 44. So, he graduated a really long time ago. I would ask him when but he’s out to dinner with my mom. My dad majored in business administration and has a degree from Marshall. After graduation he helped my grandfather run his own commercial painting company. They’ve painted a lot of the buildings in Los Angeles. After doing that for a few years, my dad founded his own construction company specializing in pubic works. My grandfather died so now my dad also helps run the commercial painting company. He is obsessed with USC and has always dreamt of my going there (con little brother and sister).</p></li>
<li><p>My grandfather never went to college, didn’t even finish high school, but managed to found his own commercial painting company after finding a mentor, and was obsessed with all of his children attending USC. He said it was the school of the future and predicted Los Angeles rising. He started off his life an orphan in poverty and is a very impressive self-made man (it almost sounds so Dickens that it would be made up, but I suppose real life sometimes mirrors fiction). He went from nothing to being able to pay three of his childrens’ college tuition in full. So there’s a vote of confidence, and the father of three alumni, even though he was not an alumni himself; (I have one more aunt, but she’s kind of crazy and not very intelligent, and did not get into USC). I figured he should be mentioned to honor his memory. He’s a large part of the reason why I myself have elected to go to USC. I trust his judgment more than anything in the world. He was brilliant, resilient, and a man who created his own destiny when he did not like the awful lot handed to him at his beginning.</p></li>
<li><p>My mother went to USC and graduated a year before my dad. She went to the Southern California School of Optometry after graduating from the honors Psycho/Biology program with honors. She was going to go to med school but then discovered blood freaked her out, which is a small impediment to being a doctor: hence, optometry instead. She opened up her own optometry practice after USC, which was very successful. My dad’s company did very well, so my mother retired in her early 30s although she still helps her friend with advice as running the old practice. Now she cooks my food and does my laundry lovingly, and is one of my best friends. She still has her optometry license. She met my dad on a ski trip at USC. So I actually can credit USC with my very existence, and the entire existence of my family. </p></li>
<li><p>My little sister wants to go East.</p></li>
<li><p>My little brother is very bright and wants to go to either USC or Stanford. We’re going to see where he gets in.</p></li>
<li><p>Also a note: I went to a college preparatory school in Orange County. There was one boy in my graduating class who got into both USC and Princeton and chose to go to USC with a scholarship instead. There is a boy in the grade above my sister who was being recruited to Princeton for volleyball. He is also choosing to go to USC instead.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>I’m not an alumni yet, but I am starting at USC next year. I plan on double-majoring in economics and English. I’m currently working on a novel while concurrently this summer, holding a marketing internship at a medical device company and a consulting job at a manufacturing company based in China. I plan to go to business school after USC, make as much money as possible, retire early, and then publish my works, in some kind of order yet undecided. For a really long time I actually detested the idea of going to USC because I wanted to do something different than the rest of my family. I grew up going to the football games and to a lot of fundraising events, so it was kind of a second home to me, and I developed that kind of dumb adolescent want to run as far away from home as possible. Then I went through the college process, revisited with an open mind, and realized that there really is not anywhere else in the world like it; and that USC really was meant to be my home. So I chose it out of my free volition, really happy that I managed to actually get over my initial, primal dislike of it. Which is saying a lot because I’ve always been considered the family rebel; and yet, USC somehow still managed to make me want to go despite it being the former footsteps of my family. So my decision was kind of a big deal for my family; but I counter that with saying that USC itself is a big deal. But really, just visit and see if it fits you. I can attest through myself and my own family that it is indeed an amazing place for the right person, though. If you choose to go, you will find whatever opportunity you want to find there. So, good luck. USC has my vote of confidence for sure. If you go, I would love to see you around. Maybe one day you’ll be on message boards like, “I met my wife there on a ski trip and now our eldest daughter is going!” too. I’m sure my dad would if he could, but he’s actually really bad at computers. So hopefully you can bear that cross with him and attract more believers. (My high school jokes that USC is actually a cult- not a school. And there are a lot of fantastic reasons why this is true. In SoCal, trojans rule many things.)</p>
<p>Hope I helped.</p>
<p>I just remembered some more people:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>The dude who spent the money to build the gym of my old high school was a USC alum.</p></li>
<li><p>I currently have a consulting job at a manufacturing firm based in both Hong Kong and Newport Beach, California (I’m helping develop a marketing plan for a new product currently in development). The president of said manufacturing firm is a USC alum. He has tons of crazy hilarious stories from his fraternity days. He travels a lot between Hong Kong, Germany, Japan, and Orange, County, CA, where the company has numerous offices and projects. He’s actually my friend’s dad and wants his two daughters to go USC as well (the eldest doesn’t want to go; the youngest does; shame on me, I only like the older one). They currently live in Laguna Beach. If I remember correctly, they graduated a few years before my parents.</p></li>
<li><p>Above manufacturing president’s wife also is a USC alumni. Her father invented the pump that pumps the syrup together in soda machines and patented in it. I don’t know exactly what she did after college but she is a fantastic woman and I love her (she’s my best friend’s mom). I know that she worked for her parents’ in a marketing capacity for a really long time and continues to help out her parents. She is also very active in charity. Also lives in Laguna Beach now. A fantastic skier and tennis player.</p></li>
<li><p>My old high school had a lot of parents who were USC alums and it was not uncommon for 5-10 people in each graduating class of 100 to elect to go to USC. A lot of the people I know who have decided to go are awesome, and some other’s, not so awesome. Though many do come from trojan families (and live mainly in Irvine/Newport/Laguna/Coto de Caza).</p></li>
</ul>
<p>I also wanted to mention that if all of the people I mention seem to fit into the “Spoiled Children” stereotype, that I apologize, it’s simply where I grew up. Also: my family the generation above me was middle class on my dad’s side and actually government housing poor on my mom’s side (my mother’s parents were Korean immigrant janitors). They both became more financially well-off after USC. So people of all classes truly go. USC itself is much more financially diverse than my relatively short, 18 year old life.</p>
<p>I’ll add more people if I think about them.</p>
<p>But I also just wanted to add that UCLA is a great school too. As are many other colleges. It really depends on what the person does with their education after they graduate, although USC has many great examples of people who made the most of their opportunities there.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>My other friend’s dad is in a vice presidential position at Allergan in charge of the Pacific region. Went to Whitman College for undergrad, but USC for business school (MBA). Was a Chemistry major at Whitman (BS in Chem)</p></li>
<li><p>Just found out from my dad that the lawyer that lives across the street went to USC for law school. He co-runs his own legal firm with a partner.</p></li>
<li><p>Also, I have a friend whose god-brother was on the USC football team. Now going to the NFL, though this is not applicable to either of our lives as far as career prospects. Technically though, an alum. Public Policy or Urban Planning major; I forget. And he didn’t like Kiffin. Nobody likes Kiffin.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Forgot to mention. Manufacturing president + wife both majored in Business Admin.</p>
<p>thanks SC2013, you provided a lot of insight on some alumni you know. Your family sounds very hard working and really used the USC education to their advantage.</p>
<p>“I plan to go to business school after USC, make as much money as possible, retire early, and then publish my works, in some kind of order yet undecided.” Good luck.</p>
<p>Yeah. My family is really weird/amazing according to some other people’s standards, I’m sure (and I’m saying this very much loving my family). The money actually doesn’t matter to me at all. It’s more to pacify them so they shut up about “what are you doing with your life, Allie?”, “Art isn’t real”. And also for my writing itself; which I’ll get to. Though even if they didn’t pressure me about all their American Dream money making, I would still definitely be double-majoring in econ.</p>
<p>I love economics. It shows the unintended consequences of each decision; it can impact lives on a mass scale and improve them for the better (Reed Hastings founder of Netflix declined becoming a philosophy professor despite that being one of his passions when he realized that he could make a larger difference in business); it’s amoral and apolitical and takes social science issues and uses cold hard math to come up with a more concrete answer than words can, (and I’m saying that as someone who both loves math and English, and thinks appealing to ethos actually is more effective). It can really change the world. (See Muhammed Yunus and “microfinance”- giving small loans to those in poverty so they can start businesses and lift themselves out of poverty). I’m really interested in the interaction between the individuals’ psyche and the cultural, historical, economic, social, and political structures that influence them and shape their sub-consciousnesses without their knowledge. So, that’s why. I’m also in a really weird position: I was born middle class, born in Orange County, mixed-race to two parents of different minorities; my dad only started making money when I was 8 or so and then we moved to a gated neighborhood. Both sides overcame an insanely overwhelming amount of poverty before my parents: one came poor fleeing the Korean War 3 generations ago, the others were fleeing Mexico 4 generations ago. Janitors, strawberry pickers, working in shipping yards, in sweatshops. Literally both sides of my family are the quintessential American success story. But I’ve realized in my life that a lot of people pervert the American Dream so that they want their kids to “HAVE” more than what their parents did. Not do more or think more or are actually happier. So I’m really trying to explore that- the materialistic perversion of the American Dream due to the new media and a very materialistic and vapid overarching culture. Kind of an undertaking of where Fitzgerald and D.H. Lawrence left off before they died. I want to go to business school to study the culture of the upper classes where it starts: at the top of the pyramid of the capitalist system of America. I want to continue to be part of the 1% as a kind of spy for the masses to see what I can find and to study what Goldman Sachs literally calls in their company “the culture carriers”. So, I’m not saying that I mean money to make money, or even to be financially secure. I want to know what is so special about it: because I know from my own childhood, that that’s never what made me happy. And I chose USC specifically because I wanted to be in LA where media and culture originate in America.</p>
<p>I could give a curseword about the money.</p>
<p>And I just wanted to tell you guys that story because I know that a lot of people don’t see USC as a “serious academic” or “serious intellectual” campus. You’ll find a lot of very different people there. I also realized that there’s a lot of animosity towards USC’s “Spoiled Children” and to people of different classes in our society in general. I just wanted to point out that someone’s class is not their experiences, necessarily, is not necessarily who they are; because everyone has a decision, and you really don’t know what has happened to people. So don’t judge anyone because they have darker skin, or because their clothes or ragged, or because they go to USC or UCLA or drive a Mercedes or have to walk. If you’re open-minded, you’ll find whatever you want. And USC is such a large school you will genuinely find whoever you are looking for; (I’m saying this as someone who considers themselves thoughtful and also knows some super vapid people going to USC).</p>
<p>Some of the most driven people I’ve met are going to USC. Some of the most vapid and mean people that were in my grade are going, much to my chagrin. Some people I thought were pretty average, though I didn’t know them too well. </p>
<p>My boss told me a story at undergrad in his fraternity he borrowed clothes from a literal Shah in his neighborhood. And rented a lion cub he put on a leash. And went around asking all the girls in the sororities to come to his fraternity’s Arabian nights themed party. (Fun dude, honestly, I love him). Also one of his frat brothers’ parents’ owned a funeral house and they accidentally left a sorority girl locked in one of the body trays once. And yeah, they eventually got kicked off frat row.</p>
<p>There’s also me, and I’m actually a transfer student with my fair share of insane stories, but I’ve run away from all of that and am spending Saturday night reading a book on Literary Theory because I actually think that’s cool. My parents sent me to a private 2 year school last semester and I had to come home after, I realized some things about the people I was with even though they were glamorous (when one of my friends was doing drugs on a Boys and Girls club toilet seat and I almost got attacked after hooking up with an NFL player in a 2 million dollar house some swedish dude’s parents’ bought them so they wouldn’t have to drive so far to school, and someone tried to steal my car, I was like… I need to go. See ya)</p>
<p>So whatever you want, you’ll find it at USC. Hopefully you don’t find the above. But that’s true anywhere, and especially in a big city like LA. Be sure to really talk to everybody so that you know their story. And once again, good luck. If you’re interested in writing or know anyone who is or interested in the subjects I listed, definitely message me. I have friends, but could use new ones with better interests.</p>