<p>My mother is buying plane tickets right now and i think she is buying tickets for me to come back on Jan 6th... but school starts again on the 8th. (and break ends on 7th)</p>
<p>so if i came back on january 6th, would the dorm be open? this is my first yr so i'm a little iffy on these things. XP help?</p>
<p>According to the housing contract, you cannot be in USC dorms between December 13 and January 4 for this year's break. Returning on January 6 should be fine.</p>
<p>Just be careful you are not leaving before you are done with final exams. The last possible day for an exam is December 13, though you can go home before that if you are finished with everything for all your classes.</p>
<p>indeed, make sure you don't get plane tickets that leave before your last final. if you do, they will <em>not</em> let you take any finals early, and you will have to miss the plane.</p>
<p>Yeah, there are quite a few finals for freshmen on the last day of finals--I know my S & all his friends have to take one 8-10am. I believe it may be a calculus final.
Rules are VERY strict on finals, so be sure to have your child confirm with the instructor as to the date of all finals BEFORE paying for your ticket. My S is leaving the the evening after his last final & returning to the dorm on Friday, 1/5, so he'll have time to readjust to LA before classes start on Monday.</p>
<p>moreover, the final exam schedule is set by the university and no one can change it, period, not even the professor. If the time and date of the final exam set by the professor does not match the official date and time, the professor is required to move it to the official time (as happened to me once!)</p>
<p>btw, nice to see you survived the earthquake himom. Imagine the irony, your son coming all the way here to the earthquake capital of the world only to avoid getting hit by one :)</p>
<p>Yeah, happy to say that by some miracle there were no serious injuries or deaths directly caused by the earthquake. Unfortunately, there is of course significant structural damage that will run in the tens of millions of dollars, if not much higher.
I just wrote a note to my son's room mate's mom, reminding her to be SURE that she has her son double-check on his finals dates so she doesn't have problems with buying his plane tickets. Would be painful to have to pay the penalty & have to try to book a later flight.
Actually, tho we don't publicize it, Hawaii does have at least its share of earthquakes too, just doesn't do as much extensive, expensive damage. In fact, we had an earthquake also in the summer of 2005 as well. Heck, we do have some live volcanoes. Here's a list of destructive earthquakes suffered in Hawaii over the past 100+ years per the US Geological Service.</p>
<p>I only have 2 finals because my other two classes are art-studio classes and they are all before 13th.</p>
<p>i realized one problem though.... The dorm closes on the 13th and I have plane tickets for the 14th... urhm. (i realized I could probably even leave before the 13th because my final exam is on the 11th...crud) I guess i need to find a friend to stay with for a day or something...?</p>
<p>Yeah, that would be a good idea. One thing to remember is that only DORMS close--the other university housing (like apartments & frat/sorority houses) don't close (to the best of my knowledge), of course if friends you've made who live in the LA area are willing to host you overnight, even better. You might want to ask friends who live in such places if you can spend the night of 12/13 with them, unless you want to take your chances sleeping in the airport (not recommended). There are some hotels near the airport that have free shuttle service, but prices are probably $60-100+.</p>
<p>do you know what time the dorms close on the 13th? do they kick you out in the morning or night etc?? apprantly my friend has the same problem so we need to figure this out.. XP</p>
<p>The dorms close at 5pm on 12/13, I believe. You can contact you RA or RC for more info & perhaps suggestions on what you & your friend can do the night before your flight (I'm sure this situation has arisen many times before).</p>
<p>Thank you very much. hopefully i can stay in my friends house who lives around LA or something... ^_^;;; its a little bit sketchy but hopefully itll work out...</p>