Coming into college, there are an overwhelming amount of things that you can do with your time. You go to class, but in all of that other time you can do things like hang out with friends, explore LA, study, and join clubs! There are over 300 clubs on the USC campus, so you can do pretty much anything. At the Student Involvement Fair, which is held each semester, I was interested in tons of clubs and put my email down on many sign up sheets, which I totally recommend. From there, I submitted applications to a few clubs and got into one special one which completely changed my life: Troy Camp!
My Troy Camp “big” and “twin” on reveal day
Troy Camp is a student-run service organization which provides free summer camp, tutoring, and leadership workshops to students in the area around the USC campus. The students in the club are called “counselors” and we go to programming each week in schools as well as look forward to the culminating event each year, which is camp! When I got into the organization in September, I had no idea what to expect. Everyone was super friendly and seemed to care a lot about the kids and I soon found that this was where I belonged. Throughout the year I went to tutoring sessions each week at elementary schools, facilitated workshops for our middle schoolers, and even got to go to a few fun field trips for our kids who went to camp the past year.
With a few of our students at Disneyland!
We couldn’t leave without going on the teacups, duh
Through Troy Camp I have learned an immense amount about the community around us, even with me being from the L.A. area myself. Being a part of this organization, which is completely outside of Viterbi, I have a great balance between my engineering classes and fun extracurriculars. They also provide a great social scene, hosting things like tailgates and potlucks, which gave me a great group of friends in all different grades and majors. I highly recommend joining a bunch of clubs your first year because you’ll quickly figure out which ones you love and want to dedicate your time to!
Suzanna and I at an event at the park
