Connor Carson: From PC Pirate to USC Trojan
PC propels local student to prestigious university
Wednesday, April 25, was an emotional rollercoaster of a day for Porterville College student and now graduate Connor Carson.
He’d had that date circled on his calendar for a while because that was when he expected to hear back from the University of California, Los Angeles, on whether he’d been accepted by the prestigious school in Westwood.
So Carson walked outside to the mailbox at his parents’ home and peered inside. Nothing from UCLA. Disappointed, Carson walked back inside and — probably not so gently — put down the mail. Then he looked a little closer at everything he’d just been carrying. There was a box. The sender: Another school only 14 miles away from UCLA — the University of Southern California, UCLA’S longtime rival.
Carson opened the box and saw the words, “Welcome to the Trojan family!”
And just like that, disappointment gave way to elation.
“I was shocked. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t think there was any way I was going to get in,” Carson said. “My mom had actually just come home for her lunch hour and she was screaming in excitement.”
The University of California, Berkeley, California State University, Fresno, and California Polytechnic State University all wanted him as well, but Carson wasn’t about to turn down USC. He was also accepted by the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Fresno State out of Porterville High School.
At USC, Carson will study accounting at the university’s Leventhal School of Accounting, which according to the U.S. News & World Report is the nation’s seventh-best accounting school.
“I’m not totally sure what I want to do long term — something in business or accounting,” said Carson, who earned an associate in science for transfer degree in business administration from PC and graduated with a cumulative grade-point average of 4.0. “I think I’d like to either be a CPA (certified public accountant) and work for a firm or manage a business.”
Carson was quick to add that PC and its professors helped him punch his ticket to USC.
“The professors here make sure you know the material before they move on to something else,” he said. “I’m so glad I came here and everything worked out the way it did.”
And as he’s walking from class to class at USC, Carson can always remember this: According to Forbes’ 2017 “America’s Top College’s” list, USC ranked 44th in the country. Which school ranked a few spots behind USC? The school 14 miles away — UCLA, at number 48.