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Our Communities

Sinchai Tsao (far right), a doctoral candidate in biomedical engineering at USC, conducts a lesson on magnetic resonance imaging at Los Angeles’ College Ready Academic High School as part of the “Engineers as Teachers” program. The for-credit program has a twofold goal: to teach engineering students how to communicate complex ideas to varied audiences, and to inspire inner-city children to strive to become scientists and engineers.

Service Learning

Service learning has always been part and parcel to USC's strong culture of community service. Service-learning courses not only benefit the community, but also give students a chance to explore the applications of their scholarship at first hand.

Service learning really came into its own at USC in 1972, when the university's Joint Educational Project (JEP) was formed. JEP is now one of the oldest and largest service-learning programs in the United States.

Today, the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and all of the university's professional schools offer opportunities for service learning, either for credit or on a non-credit volunteer basis. About half of USC's 16,500 undergraduates volunteer in the community, and some 1,700 undertake service projects as part of their coursework.

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