Community Service

As a Trojan, how will you serve?

Community service is part of our DNA. At USC, we strongly believe that community service is an essential component to a student’s education. Our Student Life division works hard to create ethical volunteering programs in the local area — encouraging cross-cultural awareness and competency while giving students real-world experience on how different environments can present tricky moral dilemmas. Through these initiatives, we work with you to build sustainable partnerships and make our communities stronger.

USC Volunteer Center

Join an energized community of peers who lead and run initiatives across Los Angeles and beyond.

Put your Spring Break to good use with a trip to dive deep into a community beyond USC.

Join a monthly day of service with local L.A. organizations to make an impact in the surrounding community.

Write letters to children in hospitals, create green kits for schools, assemble disaster kits or propose your own project for this program that meets several times per month.

Joint Educational Project (JEP)

Combine your academics with community involvement with local community schools and service agencies across Los Angeles.

  • Integrate meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility and strengthen communities. Learn more.

  • Bring hands-on and inquiry-based STEM experiences to students in elementary schools across Los Angeles. Learn more.

  • Gain valuable volunteering experience in a health care context while participating in independent research projects, peer group discussions on contemporary issues in medicine, events with health care professionals and more. Learn more.

  • Help improve children’s literacy level, self-esteem and emotional well-being through this paid tutoring opportunity in classrooms across L.A. Learn more.

  • This competitive program provides USC students regardless of major with real legal experiences through partnerships with public interest law firms and civil rights organizations. Learn more.

  • Build on your existing JEP experiences through a paid internship with your JEP organization. Learn more.

  • Help unpack some of the problems faced by people experiencing homelessness and engage with L.A. organizations working on the issue. Learn more.

  • A collaboration between Sola Community Peace Center and JEP, students are trained to teach vital peacemaking and social-emotional skills to local economically disadvantaged kids and families. Learn more.

  • Serve in one of California’s overburdened legal self-help centers, which specialize in family law, housing, landlord/tenant disputes or small claims. Learn more.

  • Available for freshmen and taught during the fall semester, students will explore the “rites of passage” associated with becoming a college student while helping local high school seniors prepare for that transition themselves. Learn more.