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发信人: holland (物竞天择), 信区: AdvancedEdu
标  题: Study in USC
发信站: BBS 水木清华站 (Thu Apr 23 13:54:04 1998)

I have contacted a student in USC, and received the following information
about studying in USC:

Yes, the 50% assistantship is a full offer. Foreign student are required
to be full-time student during the Fall and Spring semester. Therefore, 50%
assistantship is the best that you can get. The amount is good enough to live
in US moderately. You will be able to find housing near campus for $250-$450,
ranging from sharing a small room with another person to having a room on
your own. Even though I am not from Mainland China, I know a lot of friend
who are. I believe the mode here for Mainland student is that you share a
large apartment with a few people. You will be able to find quite a few
fellow countryman to share an apartment with. And you probably will have to
spend from $250 to $350.

As for food, it's not cheap if you eat fast food. And they all sting. What many
of my friend and I have been doing in the past few years is that we buy raw
food and cook meal ourselves. The one good side of living in Los Angeles is
that there is a large Chinese community close-by and therefore it is easy to
find some raw food closer to what we eat in China. Believe me, it's fun to
eat hamburger once in a while, but you will get sick if you have to eat it
everyday. The bad part about LA is that you will need to car to go around.
Public transportation is minimal. But don't worry, you will be able to find
some friend who can take you to the Chinese community. Or you can take a bus
to go to China town. As for the average food cost, it's less than $2 per meal
for me when I cook.  It's not a lot anyway.

Beside food and housing cost, there is one main spending which they won't tell
you and you would never have thought about it. It's call insurance. Health
expense is very expensive and henve health insurance is quite expensive. It's
mandatory for international student to have insurance before they can register.
Currently, the USC health plan is quite cheap (comparing to the others) and
cost about $900 per year. That's only for you though. If you have dependent
like spouse and children, it cost a lot more.

Normally, it takes about 1-1.5 years to get your MS. As for the PhD, it ranges
from 4 yrs to 6 yrs, depending on how soon you can find the right topic to
start. Actual amount of time to work toward the thesis is about 2 yrs. It
really take some time for one to find the right topic.

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