This blog post is part of a series written by the Viterbi Student Ambassaors on our freshman dorm experiences. For more posts on this topic, check out Viterbi Voices.
During my freshman year, I chose to live in the best dorm on the USC campus, Birnkrant! I’m biased of course, but Birnkrant did offer mostly everything I was looking for in a freshman dorm. It was in a great location, right next to Leavey Library for when I needed to do some late night studying : ) On top of that, Trojan Grounds, a 24 hour convenience store and Starbucks brewing coffee shop, is right at the base of Birnkrant. Again, this certainly came in handy with the late night studying. It was also conveniently located next to EVK, the dining hall, so there was no long walk to get food. Birnkrant really won on convenience. The only downside to the location is that it’s right next to McCarthy Quad. There were a lot of events help on McCarthy that blasted loud music straight at the windows of Birnkrant. It wasn’t too bad, but it got to be a nuisance at times.
Besides the location, it was the people that really made Birnkrant such a special place to live. I bonded with the kids on my floor from the get go. They were all really friendly and genuinely interested in getting to know one another. Another thing I love about Birnkrant is that the floors are co-ed. Other dorms have single gender floors but Birnkrant’s mixed gender floors really encourage socialization between the genders. The RAs were also really friendly and got to know the students on a personal level. Birnkrant was a great place to live for me because it balanced being a social dorm and a studious dorm. I could be social when I wanted to. Yet when I really needed to get some work done, I could go into my room and work without being bothered.
Good luck figuring out where to live!
