USC campus tour: Tommy Trojan, Doheny Library and the Coliseum

The University of Southern California opened in 1880, when Los Angeles was a small town of unpaved streets, and it has grown up alongside the city ever since. Its main home, the University Park campus, is a compact block of red-brick Romanesque buildings a few miles southwest of downtown, with a museum park and a famous stadium next door. This guide covers the landmarks, how the campus fits together and what student life looks like around it.

The shape of the campus

University Park is roughly a square, and almost everything is within a ten-minute walk.

Trousdale Parkway is the spine: a broad pedestrian avenue running through the middle of campus from north to south.
The historic centre sits halfway along it, where Bovard, Tommy Trojan, Alumni Park and Doheny Library face one another.
USC Village is on the north side, across Jefferson Boulevard.
Exposition Park, with the Coliseum and the museums, is directly across Exposition Boulevard to the south.
Figueroa Street runs along the eastern edge towards downtown.

The medical school and its hospitals are on a separate Health Sciences campus on the other side of downtown.

Bovard and Tommy Trojan

The Bovard Administration Building, finished in 1921, was designed by John and Donald Parkinson, the father-and-son architects behind several Los Angeles landmarks. Its brick arches and square tower set the Romanesque style that most later buildings followed. Inside is Bovard Auditorium, the university's main hall for lectures and concerts.

In front of it stands Tommy Trojan, a life-size bronze warrior unveiled in 1930 for the university's fiftieth anniversary. It is the natural meeting point on campus and the centre of rallies. In the week of the football game against UCLA, students traditionally wrap the statue and stand guard over it to keep rival pranksters away; our UCLA campus tour covers the other side of that rivalry.

Doheny Library and Mudd Hall

Across Alumni Park from Bovard, the Edward L. Doheny Jr. Memorial Library opened in 1932. Ralph Adams Cram was among its architects, and its marble halls, painted ceilings and long reading rooms make it the grandest interior on campus; film crews have used it many times. Day-to-day studying tends to happen at the more modern Leavey Library nearby, which keeps long hours.

A few minutes' walk away, Mudd Hall of Philosophy is the most romantic building at USC. It was modelled on a medieval Tuscan monastery, with a cloistered courtyard, a tall clock tower and a wood-panelled philosophy library inside. Another tower nearby, topped with a globe, marks the Von KleinSmid Center for international affairs.

The School of Cinematic Arts

USC's film school was founded in 1929 in partnership with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which makes it the oldest in the United States. Its present home is a complex of Mediterranean-style buildings and courtyards on the north-west side of campus, built with major support from George Lucas, who studied here. The location matters: the studios are a short drive away, and working professionals teach and visit regularly.

Film is only the best-known example. The university also has large schools of engineering, business, communication and music on the same campus.

USC Village and where students live

USC Village opened in 2017 on the north side of Jefferson Boulevard. It is a set of residential colleges in a collegiate-Gothic style, built over ground-floor shops, restaurants and a supermarket and arranged around a central square. With the older residence halls on the main campus, it means a large share of undergraduates, and nearly all first-years, can live within a few minutes of their classes.

North of the Village, the streets around 28th Street, known as the Row, are home to the fraternities and sororities. The Tutor Campus Center, back on Trousdale, is the student union, with dining and meeting spaces.

The Coliseum and Trojan sport

USC football is played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Exposition Park, a few minutes' walk from the centre of campus. The stadium opened in 1923 and has hosted the Olympic Games twice, in 1932 and 1984. On game days the Trojan Marching Band leads the crowd down Trousdale Parkway to the stadium. The oldest rivalries are with UCLA across town and with Notre Dame in Indiana, a series that dates from the 1920s.

Basketball and volleyball are played at the Galen Center, on Figueroa Street at the edge of campus.

Exposition Park next door

The Coliseum shares Exposition Park with a large formal rose garden, the Natural History Museum, the California Science Center and the California African American Museum. Students cross the road to run, study outdoors or visit the exhibitions, and the park is the easiest way to add something to a campus walk.

Visiting the campus

The campus is generally open to walk through during the day, and the historic centre can be seen in an hour or so. USC typically offers tours and presentations for prospective students through its admission office; availability varies through the year, so check the university's official visitor page for current arrangements.

Getting there and around

By light rail: Metro's E Line runs along Exposition Boulevard with stops at the edge of campus, linking it with downtown in one direction and Santa Monica in the other.
By air: Los Angeles International Airport is the main gateway. Journey times by road vary enormously with traffic.
By car: visitor parking is in campus structures reached from the main gates; game days and events fill them early.
On foot: the campus is flat, and Trousdale Parkway makes it hard to get lost.

Where families usually base themselves

Beside campus: a handful of hotels along Figueroa Street are within walking distance.
Downtown Los Angeles: a few stops north by rail, with the widest choice and plenty of restaurants.
Santa Monica: at the other end of the E Line, for combining a campus visit with the beach.

Families visiting several California campuses on one trip may also want our guides to Caltech in Pasadena and Stanford in the north.

Bloiq is reader-supported. Some links may earn us a commission; it never affects what we write. How we make money.

Cover photo: Bobak Ha'Eri, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons