Whats USC like?
USC is a large, private university with the main campus just south of downtown Los Angeles. USC was established in 1880 and had in 2010 an enrollment of 17,000 undergraduates and 18,000 graduate and professional students, along with 3200 faculty and 10,800 staff, making it the largest private employer in LA. USC Earth Sciences is a growing, top twenty department with particular strengths in geophysics and geobiology. Some highlights at USC include the Southern California Earthquake Center and the High Performance Computing Center. While the faculty you’ll work with and the overall environment will be a better guide to see if this is the right match for you, it helps to know how the university is positioned. The USC Geophysics PhD program was ranked 9th in the US in 2010, and the university overall ranked 23rd (ahead of UCLA and just behind UC Berkeley), both as reported by US News and World Report. In 2006, the university was ranked 47 out of all of the world’s universities, and 36th i
