When I imagined what college would be like at Orientation, I thought about how much USC could offer me in the next four years. I had waited since seventh grade to study journalism, and here I was, at one of the best journalism schools in the country. I would soon go through recruitment to find a home in Tri Delta, go to the beach on long weekends, meet hundreds of people from all over the world and even pick up a Linguistics major along the way.

I have USC to thank for all these incredible aspects of my life, but eventually, my dream school failed me in a way I couldn't see coming as a newly admitted student. And that failure is one that affects many of my fellow students- handicap accessibility.

In July 2014, just before the start of my sophomore year, my orthopedist sat me down in her office. After years of foot injuries from dance, my left foot was essentially falling apart. As a result, I would have to get surgery to repair the tarsometatarsal joints of my second to fifth toes. The recovery time was three months non-weight bearing followed by extensive physical therapy and yet another surgery.

The news wasn't a shock since I could barely walk a mile without pain in my foot, but I cried anyway. I cried for my crumbling dance career, but mostly I cried for the tough spring semester I knew I had ahead of me.

Often people put their lives on hold for these kind of injuries, take a semester off to focus on recovery, but that kind of option seemed ridiculous to me. It wasn't like I was dying; I just couldn't walk for a couple months, and I had managed that before. So instead, I shook it off, set the date of surgery for the Monday of Thanksgiving and set off for school.

Over the course of first semester, I obsessed over learning about handicap accessibility on campus. I actively looked for the handicap logos for buildings I would frequent, I researched services USC's Department of Public Safety (DPS) offers to get people to and from class and I recognized places I probably wouldn't be able to go to during those few months.

For example, climbing the stairs of New North one night to see my Little on the third floor, I made an observation that I was a little ashamed I hadn't thought of before. I realized how much it must suck that if you have a physical disability, that keeps you from living in the "cool dorm" on campus because there's no elevator. This seems like a superficial thing to worry about, but then again, everything about freshman year is a tad artificial for those first few months, so I couldn't have been the first person to make this observation.

I had moments like that all the time, but they didn't even remotely prepare me for what was ahead.

Prime example of what I was not prepared for: my foot swelling so much on a plane I had to use a tray table to elevate and alleviate the pain. But I digress...

I had French in the basement of SOS (that building wedged between VKC and WPH) at noon, so I called DPS to escort me to class at 11:15. My mom was with me to get settled back at school with the crutches, and her flight home was at 1:30, meaning she had to leave my apartment around 11:45.

She wanted to make sure I got to class alright, so she and I sat on the steps inside Troy Hall because it was raining outside. And we sat... and waited... until finally she had to catch a cab to the airport because it was 11:45 already.

She left, and I sat... and waited... and got a call from my mom that she had made it to LAX alright... and then, finally, at 12:15, an hour later, DPS showed up to take me to class.

This officer was one I got to know pretty well over the next few months, and with this first encounter, he quickly got me to SOS so I could at least make it to half of my French class. But when I got out of the DPS car, I realized I had no idea how to get to the basement without taking the concrete stairs outside, now covered in rainwater. So here I stood, in the pouring rain, anxiously looking for the handicap accessibility sign for SOS.

I eventually wandered inside the main floor of SOS in search of an elevator, slowly making my way as my soaked crutches struggled to catch the linoleum floor of the lobby. After searching every square inch of that building, it was 12:45, and there was no elevator. So I emailed my professor, apologizing for my absence, and sat down on the bench in the SOS lobby and cried.

For the record, I am not a person that cries out of frustration often. But when I have to wait an hour to get a ride to class, only to show up late, wander around in the rain, and find my efforts are futile, I'm going to cry. And after all that, I then had to make the choice to call DPS and wait another hour for a ride, or crutch all the way back to Troy Hall in the rain.

I crutched home in the rain. To this day I am indebted to the stranger who offered up their time and their umbrella to walk me to Hoover/Jefferson. And do you know what I learned when I got home? Handicap accessibility to SOS is the elevator in WPH. There's an underground tunnel that connects the two basements, but of course, there's not an obvious sign anywhere to suggest so.

That right there is the epitome of USC's handicap accessibility. It exists, but it's far too complicated to actually assist the people that really need it.

There are some aspects of these services that one just gets used to. For example, weather and time-of-day affect escort calls for DPS (and becoming buddies with an operator for the Non-Emergency line doesn't hurt either). D.A.R.T. or "Disabled Access to Road Transportation," offers a quick way to get from class to class, but it only drives within campus boundaries. And USC's Über service Thursdays to Sundays are a God-send when Campus Cruiser is notoriously slow.

As you can tell by the variety of transportation I just listed, when you can't walk, you constantly think about how to get from Point A to Point B. The fewer obstacles you face, the better your day goes, and I think that's where most college campuses fail to hit the mark on handicap accessibility.

When something as simple as carrying your plate to the dinner table requires inconveniencing another person, you just want to have one aspect of your life not feel like a burden to someone else. These services exist to alleviate the stress of this dependence on other people to get through the day.

For colleges, institutions that are created to develop independent adults, it's rather ironic that handicap accessibility, a service put in place to foster independence, is so flawed. Things as simple as assuring an elevator works on class days or not overcrowding classrooms with desks can make a huge difference for those with a physical disability.

Though these services were often the bane of my existence, the people who helped me out in spite of them were what made this whole ordeal manageable. So with that in mind, I want to thank everyone that helped me throughout Spring Semester (especially those of you who pushed me around Disneyland in a wheelchair for a whole day).

And finally, here's to those members of the Trojan Family that deal with these issues permanently. It was extremely difficult having to depend on these services for only one semester, so I can't imagine the frustration of dealing with these problems daily for the duration of your college experience. Let's hope that USC can extend its realm of opportunity to one day include a handicap accessibility system that truly has the student's needs as a priority.