From Kenya to Los Angeles

September 29, 2014
by Bindi

Living in LA

I remember landing in Los Angeles, and seeing baseball and American football fields for the first time. It was then that I had my moment of realization that I had left home and was in the United States of America!

I had several chances to realize that, for instance saying goodbye to my wonderful family and my precious dog, Toto, or any time through my 30-hour journey to Los Angeles. But it had to be the football fields!

Of course it was the longest flight of my life but being here at USC has made living through those 30 hours worth it! 5 weeks have gone by in flash and it makes me wonder what I have been up to.

Making the transition from Kenya to Los Angeles has been much easier than I expected it to be. Strange but I wasn’t anxious about the big move to LA despite this being my first time in USA and that is all because I had all the information I needed weeks before I left Kenya. I knew exactly where I was going to live, how I will be commuting to the Health Sciences Campus and back to the accommodation. I got everything I needed to know from the emails that Kim and Liz would send including the daunting tasks like applying to the program and visa application procedures.

We had a series of events to orient and integrating International students into the Trojan family such as the student orientations, reception dinner and mentor-mentee programs. The highlight of our first week of classes was of course the White Coat ceremony. It was different compared to other universities around the world, and I too believe the oath should be taken at the beginning of the course rather than the graduation. The ceremony re-instilled the values of occupational therapy and our commitment to becoming better OTs.

Living at the OT house (Centennial Apartments) has to be one of the best decisions I made for many reasons. The best reason being meeting my roommate, Kathleen, a second year MA2 student. She has been such help to me and I wouldn’t be having half as good of a time as I am having right now without her. With her I managed to attend many events such as the interdisciplinary health mixer at Dockweiler beach, the Los Angeles County Fair, the Greek festival and we watched several movies at the European Film Festival. We are taking full advantage of all the good and fun things USC has to offer.

Residing at the University Park Campus opens up opportunities to attend all the fun events they host. One of the first one I attended was the welcome back concert where they had Nico and Vinz perform. I especially enjoyed the concert because they had a good African groove to their music.

My American experience wouldn’t be complete without exploring the Greek sororities and fraternities. Not only did I go to ‘frat party’ but I also rushed for a leadership fraternity Delta Omicron Zeta for about half a week before I decided that it wasn’t for me. I just know where to go when I need to take a break from being a responsible graduate student.

So far I love being at USC and a part of the Trojan Family. Fight on Trojans!

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