During move-in week, Trojans settle in for a new year of growth and opportunity

Standing in a line outside of McCarthy Honors Residential College on Monday, Anne Chikwenhere was doing her best to smile as she inched along with a large bin filled to the top with her daughter’s belongings.

“She is our oldest, our first to go away, and I am not OK,” the mother said of her daughter, freshman Shamiso Chikwenhere of the USC Marshall School of Business. She and several other family members traveled from Virginia to help her daughter with the milestone move.

“She is incredible and focused and told us, ‘This is what I want. This is where I want to be.’ We could not be prouder,” Chikwenhere said.

Shamiso Chikwenhere is among the more than 8,000 first-year, returning, transfer and graduate students who settled into USC’s residential colleges during move-in week, which concluded Wednesday.

For the new Trojan, who will be combining her business studies with classes in the cinematic arts, the move into USC Village is somewhat of a relief.

“I’m just excited to not be packing anymore,” Chikwenhere said. “I’m honestly excited to meet new people at such a diverse, cool school.”

New Trojans drawn to USC’s academic innovation

As he moved into the New North Residential College on Tuesday morning with the help of his parents, USC Marshall freshman Warren Munroe said it was a day he had been dreaming of since visiting USC during his freshman year of high school.

While the first visit was inspiring, Munroe said “100 percent” of the reason he wanted to become a Trojan was the opportunity to earn USC’s Bachelor of Science in Artificial Intelligence for Business degree.

“I hadn’t heard of any other AI and business program like this,” he said. “It’s very progressive, very up-to-date, and I’m very excited to start studying it.”

His parents, Wirth and Kristen Munroe, are proud of their youngest son — the last of their three children to leave their home in Miami to attend college — and feel he is exactly where he will thrive the most.

“The job of raising them under our roof is done,” Wirth Munroe said, his voice thick with emotion. “We love USC. I think they have the best AI major in the country for sure. Based on our research,they’re ahead of everybody.”

Freshman Mariko Okubo is also glad to be joining an academic program that is unique to the university: the Bachelor of Science in Architecture + Inventive Technologies program at the USC School of Architecture.

“The other schools I applied to just had architecture, but here, they are tying architecture with technology,” she said. “I want to see where it takes me.”

Her father, Jeff Okubo, still in the middle of helping her move into Birnkrant Residential College on Tuesday, was already feeling the pangs of separation anxiety.

“It’s bittersweet, and I’m sure every dad feels the same way,” said the Los Gatos, Calif., resident, who wore a “USC Dad” T-shirt to mark the day.

Another year of adventure and growth

Move-in day was far more relaxed this year for Aseem and Monica Sood, who made the same journey from their home in New Delhi when their son was a freshman.

Now Manas Sood is a USC Marshall sophomore studying finance and math. He settled into Cowlings and Ilium Residential College on Monday.

“His mother and I used to call him every single day because he is our only child,” Assem Sood said. “In the year since we sent him here, we have seen him entirely transform.”

Manas Sood said he enjoyed family time during his summer at home, but was eager to return to school.

“This year, I am even more energized,” he said.

While the Sood family will be far apart geographically, freshman Jack Williams of the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences will be able to see one of his parents on campus most days.

Dad Dmitri Williams is a professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, and the family lives nearby in Carson. His sister Mia Williams is a Trojan alumna currently earning a master’s degree at USC.

Jack Williams said he is not taking the proximity to his family for granted.

“I think it’s great,” he said. “I love my mom. I love my dad, even if I don’t always tell them. And it is nice to always have a space on campus where I can go if I ever need a break.”

A sustainable move-in process

While there was a steady stream of bins carrying belongings and household items into the residential colleges this week, a number of these items will likely be left behind by students during spring move-out.

Students and their families were pleasantly surprised on Wednesday to have the opportunity to buy previously left-behind items at a bargain prices. They were for sale at a pop-up shop set up on the lawn in front of the Allan Hancock Foundation Building on Trousdale Parkway.

The highest-priced item was a $35 microwave. Other practical bargains included shower caddies, hampers, small storage units, shelving, yoga mats and bundles of clothes hangers.

The pop-up is a collaboration among USC Housing, USC Facilities Planning Management, USC Surplus Sales and USC Sustainability. It will be at USC Village on Thursday, then back in front of the Hancock Building on Friday.

“This is awesome because we were going to go … and get all this stuff anyway,” said freshman Madison Neujahr of the USC School of Cinematic Arts as she shopped with her parents.

Holding two armfuls of items, Neujahr’s mother, Amanda Lopez, said: “I just spent 60 bucks, and this probably would have cost me more than $200 [at a store]. We are very happy with our purchases, and now we’re ready to go and sort through all of her stuff.”