International students hit particularly hard by USC murders

Two USC graduate students from China were shot and killed near their campus Wednesday morning.

The murders have come to a shock to the Southern California university, prompting vigils and memorials throughout the campus.

But the news has resonated especially deep with the school's international students, who, like the victims Ming Qu and Ying Wu, came to USC from a foreign country.

“I was rather shocked,” Leo Chan from an international exchange student from Hong Kong said. “I thought that USC had a wide network to make sure the students are safe and sound.”

USC has 7,200 international students, a number that has risen as the college continues to attract students from abroad.

The school has the largest number of international students of any university in the U.S. Roughly 19 percent of the school's 38,000 students are from overseas, including 2,500 from China. But though the crime has undoubtedly shaken the international student community, they still feel USC is a safe place.

“I don’t doubt much of my safety,” Chan said, who suggested that this incident was an isolated event.

Angela Lu, an international student from Malaysia studying accounting and finance, agreed.

“After the incident, I don’t think I’m that much at risk since I usually get home early and again, there are so many security guards posted around from college to my apartment,” Lu said. “However, I feel the need to be more careful with my surroundings.”

For Lu, the security guards, who have posts both on and off campus, are a source of reassurance.

“I was a bit stunned initially, but there are a lot of security guards stationed around off campus, and usually whatever thieving crimes that happen are resolved rather quickly,” Lu said.

The university held a candlelight vigil for the students on Thursday, and many laid flowers on campus as symbols of remembrance.

The LAPD’s Southwest Division, which includes the USC campus had four reported murders since the beginning of the year.

Clarissa Wei is a Spring 2012 USA TODAY Collegiate Correspondent. Learn more about her here.

This story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.