Ranking All the USC Housing I’ve Lived In: Century, Parkside, Troy Hall, and Gateway

by Adrian Mendoza ‘25

At USC, most freshmen live on campus in freshman specific housing structures like Birnkrant and New North. Sophomores then have the most ease and choice in their housing because of the sophomore housing guarantee. They can choose to live in a suite-style unit in the USC Village or one of USC’s apartment complexes on or off-campus. After your sophomore year, you lose priority in USC’s housing assignment system, so most upperclassmen that previously lived in USC housing move to independent housing near campus. 

Personally, I reassigned from one housing structure to another my sophomore year then proceeded to try my luck with USC housing the following year rather than pursue independent housing. I do not recommend you follow in my footsteps, but I do recommend you heed my advice as I rank the USC housing I’ve lived in as someone who has tried four of these housing options.

photo credit: USC Housing

4. Century

Unit Style: Apartment

Walking Distance from Tommy Trojan: 12 minutes

Pros: Off Campus, has standard living room and kitchen

Cons: Cramped, low ceilings, worn down

I was reassigned to Century to escape a bad roommate situation at the start of my sophomore year, and though Century served me well at the time, it was a downgrade from where I had previously lived. My first impression of the Century building was its liminal-feeling hallways that always smell strongly of weed and its rickety elevator that did, in fact, break down for a week while I was living there so us residents were condemned to the stairs. I was lucky to be on the second floor of three floors, so this was only minorly inconvenient.

The actual unit isn’t much better than the journey to get there. The front entrance of the apartment snakes around the divider between the kitchen to the living room, making the space feel extremely cramped. The living room features a leather couch divided into four segments. I fell through the gaps between these segments multiple times while attempting to nap.

I ended up in the smaller of the two rooms, which I shared with a roommate. The space between the two beds is no more than five feet, and the beds are lofted with the desks underneath. If I wasn’t hitting my head on the bottom of the lofted bunk, I was hitting my head – and somehow scraping my knee – on the ceiling since the beds were far too high for the very low ceilings.

photo credit: USC Housing

3. Parkside Arts & Humanities

Unit Style: Suite

Walking Distance from Tommy Trojan: 7 minutes

Pros: In unit restroom, you’ll bond with your roommates, hosts social events, the only freshman housing with AC

Cons: No kitchen or living room, lots of roommates, you have to check in guests

Truthfully, any freshman housing option, aside from the lucky few who get an apartment their freshman year, should objectively be last on my list. Parkside A&H, however, has earned its spot in third on my list because I firmly believe it is the best freshman housing option. Yes, you do share a suite with 5 to 7 other students and are tucked away on the sleepy side of campus, but the alternative is sharing your communal space (including restrooms and showers) with an entire hall in places such as New North or Birnkrant. 

By that standard, Parkside is luxurious. A major benefit, especially for freshmen, is getting to know your suitemates rather than navigating the door open or door closed politics of a residential hall. If you don’t have great suitemates, this is a negative, but if you manage to maintain a friendly relationship with them, this is a great thing. You may have a suite-civil-war over the thermostat, though, but maybe that was just me.

The common space in the suite at Parkside A&H is very minimal. It is essentially a hallway with a small circular table in the entrance way. My suite made the most of this space by hanging up a whiteboard on the wall and decking the hallway out with Christmas and Halloween decorations (that we were then forced to take down after room inspections).

The individual rooms, however, are really spacious, even with two roommates. My freshman roommate frequently took advantage of this space by practicing their tap dancing and ballet. If that doesn’t paint a picture of the size of the space, we were also able to comfortably sit all eight suitemates in a circle in our room. You each get a small closet, a desk next to your bed, and storage under the bed. You may have to jump a bit to get onto the bed, but you will not face the issue of hitting your head on the ceiling at Parkside A&H unlike the lower ranked accomodations on this list. Campus housing also provides a mini fridge in your room.

photo credit: USC Housing

2. Troy Hall

Unit Style: Apartment

Walking Distance from Tommy Trojan: 10 minutes

Pros: Spacious, has a standard kitchen and large living room, has a courtyard

Cons: None

Troy Hall is easily the best housing option for the best price. Many people are unaware of this housing structure as it was previously restricted to graduate students, but it is now open to undergraduates as well. So if you’re a rising sophomore or upperclassman, I highly recommend you opt for this option when making your housing wishlist.

Troy Hall is connected to Troy East to make up a complete building with a courtyard in the middle. Though you may have to walk through long hallways to get to your room, there are many entrance points, and the courtyard is extremely nice. It is decked out with large fireplaces and  hammocks, and it’s a relatively safe place to park your bikes.

The units have a smaller kitchen but a large living room/dining room with a couch and a small side table. This gave me plenty of space for my bookshelf and was a perfect setup for a projector.

The rooms are slightly smaller than the rooms in Parkside A&H but more spacious than Century. You get the same standard desk and slightly lofted bed as Parkside A&H. The space is very livable and is really what you make of it. The one downside is the walls are notoriously difficult to stick command strips to, so if you intend to use those, you may face some trouble.

photo credit: Gateway

1. Gateway

Unit Style: Apartment

Walking Distance from Tommy Trojan: 11 minutes

Pros: Spacious, has a lot of amenities

Cons: Expensive

Strictly speaking, Gateway isn’t USC housing, but you can register to live there through USC housing for the school year. If not, you can lease with Gateway directly for a full year at a monthly rate rather than a per semester rate. This is, unsurprisingly, the most expensive option because of Gateway’s many amenities. 

Like the residential colleges, Gateway hosts events for its residents in its two large courtyards. It has numerous study rooms on each floor and has a wade pool open to residents and visitors. The sheer size of the complex means that taking out the trash or doing laundry can be a hike, and if you’re on a high floor, you will have to spend a great deal of time waiting for and in the elevator.

The units have a relatively open floor plan with the option of two doubles. The kitchen then connects to the living room, which is a decent size and comes with a large comfy couch, a smaller segmented couch, a coffee table, and a TV. The apartments do, however, lack storage.

The bedrooms themselves are the largest on this list, able to fit two full size beds and, of course, my bookshelf. They also have restrooms in each room and two closets, but the downside is that there is very little lighting. You may have to rely on natural light or provide your own lamps.