If I wanted to follow my son’s academic progress throughout the semester; what system would I need to be able to access? Thanks in advance.
You would need your son’s permission to track his academic progress, and he would provide you with access. The other option is to hire a hacker, but you would have to decide if this is worth the expense or potential legal complications. Your call.
And it would depend on teacher. Some of D’s (now graduated so may have new things) used blackboard, but some professors just emailed test results. It won’t be as straight forward as HS and professors have a lot of discretion about things like following university attendance policies, etc. Class participation grades can also vary by class. And sometimes homework is not graded.
Best way for student to know where he/she stands throughout the semester is to communicate with professor. So to some extent you need to rely on talking with your son and encouraging him to do things that lead to the best outcomes - attending class, doing homework even when not graded, tutoring center if need, attending supplemental instructions, visiting professor during office hours for help or feed back, etc. As @Gora14 pointed out, you need his cooperation anyway to see his various accounts.
Thanks for the info. I know that they do not grade every assignment. My son just transferred from another major university to USC. At least there; any assignments which were graded or test and quiz results were posted to a university wide system which allowed the student to track their progress throughout the semester. I assumed a similar system was in place at USC, but maybe not. Since I am dropping $40k+ per year for him to attend USC; I will have access to the system without the aid of a hacker, if one exists. 
Just wondering if one exists and; if so, what it is named.
Again, likely Blackboard but not all professors use it.
My child had a medical issue one semester and I ran up against the double whammy of the regular adult privacy laws , topped by the medical privacy laws. I found the USC professors well-educated in both. I sent a short email to let them know the situation. No response from 4 of the 5 and the one that wrote back was careful to say she was doing so with permission of her department head and could only write she had received my email and looked forward to receiving communication from my student (who was in the hospital). I agree with scmom12 that the university offers many academic supports. Students just have to be pro-active. My student’s professors were understanding of her situation once she opened up and communicated with them. I hope your student is off to a great start as a Gamecock!
Thank you for the info and kind thoughts. I hope your child’s issue was short term. I little early to get a good feel on how he is making out. He was a little frustrated that the assignments and information for each class seem to be posted on different systems. I am sure he will get use to it. His previous school had a centralized system which was used by all professors to post syllabi, assignments, info and grades.