USC Visit, Sat in on a class

[polaris]

Visited USC today and sat in on a 1L Crim Law class.  I went early before the class just to look around and soak in the sights. Have to say: it is an amazingly beautiful campus-- all mellowed brick, dappled fountains and freshly cut grass while improbably beautiful, "casual-looking" students walk about with starbucks in hand. I had to look around a couple times to see if I wasn't interrupting a movie shoot or something like.

[HerculePoirot]

Visited USC today and sat in on a 1L Crim Law class.  I went early before the class just to look around and soak in the sights. Have to say: it is an amazingly beautiful campus-- all mellowed brick, dappled fountains and freshly cut grass while improbably beautiful, "casual-looking" students walk about with starbucks in hand. I had to look around a couple times to see if I wasn't interrupting a movie shoot or something like.

So what did you think about the class?? any other insights would be greatly appreciated since I'm considering going there in the fall

[keelee]

Great to hear it was a nice campus. If you don't mind asking, how was the class?

[polaris]

The class was actually taught by a very animated and energetic professor.  It wasn't boring at all, I was pretty engaged the whole time though I had obviously no clue about the reading or other materials.  He didn't use the Socratic method, which disappointed me a little (hehe) but the other students assured me that they had plenty of other professors who used hard core Socratic method regularly.

The students were EXTREMELY nice. Because the classes are quite small, it was obvious that I was a visitor/applicant. They all took the time to say hi and were a lot friendlier than I had expected.  A point of interest was that everyone was dressed really badly/strangely.I was kind of nervous until after class when everyon explained that their clothes were a "pre-April's fool" stunt where they had to dress up like each other? I don't know if that relieved or increased my concern.

[terrible2]

I sat in on the Friday class and the students were drawing on the board before the crim professor came in. Then another student gave a speech about why everyone should vote for him for 2L VP... needless to say, if the law students are this relaxed then law school can't be THAT terrible. Well, at least at USC.

[Milashka]

Sat in class and did a tour of USC law and was pretty impressed. The people, both professors and students, are really friendly, the school is really small (this year`s class is 215 students and they think it's way too much!), so there is a very personal attitude to each student. The faculty is pretty young and the classes were not boring at all.

The campus inside is also really nice though small.
In general, I had a much more positive impression then I expected to have!

[jimalaiyah]

I realize it's way late on this, but I had a very interesting experience at USC...

So I went... first of all the campus is breathtaking... that is, until you find the law school.  It's a cinderblock on stilts.

I sat in on the school-sanctioned property class. Professor was engaging, no socratic, which bothered me a bit 'cause he wasted in aggregate about 15 minutes waiting for someone to volunteer, but all-in-all impressive.  Immediately following was a crim class. Prof. walked in... found out, hey... he wasn't a lawyer... ok, ok, yeah, he's from the philosophy dept... ok, I can work with that.... DEAR LORD.  The least engaging, most downright boring class I've ever sat through... I had to leave halfway in, but by that point I think he had completely covered three whiteboards with illegible scribble and there had been maybe one comment made in 35 minutes or so.

The rest of the school I found shockingly unimpressive.  Adcomm staff was unkind, unhelpful and lacked general knowledge about the school.

Wasn't a huge fan...

[moonpie]

I realize it's way late on this, but I had a very interesting experience at USC...

So I went... first of all the campus is breathtaking... that is, until you find the law school.  It's a cinderblock on stilts.

I sat in on the school-sanctioned property class. Professor was engaging, no socratic, which bothered me a bit 'cause he wasted in aggregate about 15 minutes waiting for someone to volunteer, but all-in-all impressive.  Immediately following was a crim class. Prof. walked in... found out, hey... he wasn't a lawyer... ok, ok, yeah, he's from the philosophy dept... ok, I can work with that.... DEAR LORD.  The least engaging, most downright boring class I've ever sat through... I had to leave halfway in, but by that point I think he had completely covered three whiteboards with illegible scribble and there had been maybe one comment made in 35 minutes or so.

The rest of the school I found shockingly unimpressive.  Adcomm staff was unkind, unhelpful and lacked general knowledge about the school.

Wasn't a huge fan...

profs anywhere are hit and miss, i think. i wouldn't sweat it - i had a similar experience and it just meant i had an easier time keeping abreast of perez hilton.

[AFever]

Yay, Jimalay... you sat in on my class. And the guy you thought was super-boring really isn't, you might have caught one of his more boring classes, but he's really passionate about the material and it generally translates.

Also, you'll be thrilled when you have professors who don't do socratic when you actually get to school. I don't pay this much to listen to follow students wax philosophical, thanks.

[indomitable]

Hey LSDers and future Trojans, I wanted to inform everyone here that there's a facebook group for all of us that will (likely) be starting law school at USC this fall. The link is below:

http://uah.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2312864115