USC welcomes thousands of new students at annual convocation

With the traditional Academic Procession leading the way, set to the Trojan marching band’s familiar tones of “Fight On” and “Conquest,” the University of Southern California’s New Student Convocation provided the official welcome for new students and their families, Thursday, Aug. 20, in the university’s Alumni Park.

USC greeted more than 10,700 new students, including undergraduates, graduate students and transfer students, at the festive ceremony.

Each academic school hosts their own ceremony, with students attending various departments — plus deans and senior leadership — all clad in their cardinal and gold regalia, marching behind their banners across the campus.

This year, the event welcomes the Class of 2030, including incoming transfer students, graduate students and doctoral candidates.

Ashleigh Conner, a senior music student, opened the ceremony with her rendition of the national anthem.

“New Trojans, this morning we welcome you to a campus that is hallowed ground for poets and playwrights, novelists and journalists, dancers and musicians, and screenwriters and filmmakers. Indeed, this is a sacred space for storytellers,” said Varun Soni, the Dean of Religious Life at the school, in his invocation.

“And for those of use who are not storytellers by training or by aspiration, we are still the authors of our own life stories,” said Soni, the first and only Hindu to serve as the chief spiritual leader of a U.S. university, telling students that they are all the heroes of their own journeys.

Newly minted 13th University President USC Beong-Soo Kim encouraged student to seek out thoughtful answers to the questions that will face them — but to see also see their answers not as the end of the story, but the entry point to the next, even more challenging question.

“Creating an environment where we all value questions at least as much as answers isn’t just important in our own lives,” he said, “it’s a collective responsibility that each of us carries as members of a great university like USC. That spirit of inquiry is how we advance our academic research, our learning and our excellence and it’s also how we show other members of our Trojan family that we care about them enough to listen.”

“What you find here, you cannot replicate anywhere else,” said USC Gould School of Law student Syrabi Nur Rahman, president of the Undergraduate Student Government. “That was clear from the start,” said Rahman, who was born in Bangladesh, and grew up in Koreatown.

“Where else is it the norm for a student to major in archaeology and also minor in dance? To pursue a Bachelor’s and Master’s simultaneously? And to have a network that runs so deep that no matter where you go you know a fellow Trojan will be out there ready to support you?”

Earlier this week, more than 8,000 first-year, returning, transfer and graduate students settled into USC’s residential colleges during move-in week.

This year will mark the 143rd Commencement for USC graduates, according to the school.