When USC graduate student Shaun Rushforth wants his gerontology studies to come to life, all he has to do is open the door to his East Hollywood apartment and walk down the hallway. The very quiet hallway.
That's because Rushforth and two other USC students are the youngest residents (by at least four decades) at Kingsley Manor Care Center, a facility that otherwise houses 260 senior citizens in various stages of independence and nursing care. The young people live there under an unusual arrangement that complements their academic research about the elderly and offers a terrific deal in Los Angeles' expensive rental market.
"It's like living in the dorms without all the parties, and everyone is over 65. It's great," said Rushforth, 27, who is considering a career in geriatric medicine.
In exchange for 16 hours a week of duties, such as teaching tai chi or running a bingo game, the students from USC's Davis School of Gerontology get a free room or apartment about a half-hour from campus and all the dining hall meals they can fit into their schedule. But more important, they say, they learn crucial lessons for careers -- and about their own lives and mortality.
Off-duty, they may help a disoriented senior find her way back to the right room. Sometimes they coach an eager septuagenarian on the mysteries of e-mail and the Internet. Often they spend time just listening to someone review the ups and downs of a long life.
"They're learning ahead of time what it's like to be old," retired middle school teacher Roger Goulet, 90, said of the students.
"There's a big spectrum of old age here, and they can learn what mistakes to avoid in life."
For USC graduate student Julie Thomas, the best part of her two years at Kingsley Manor has been several dinners a week with elderly neighbors and sharing in the conversations.
"It feels like you are making a difference in more than one person's life," said Thomas, 23, a Bakersfield native who plans to be a geriatric social worker. "Just to be there to greet them at the end of the day and talk with someone who maybe didn't talk to a friend or family person that day."
Thomas, Rushforth and their colleague Jeanine Yonashiro all concede that they like the quiet and don't miss the party-hearty atmosphere of dormitories. All close to their own grandparents in childhood, they say they feel at ease among an army of foster grandparents whose noisiest acts are blasting the volume on TV shows to accommodate hearing loss. It's fine to spot walkers and wheelchairs in the halls instead of bicycles and skateboards.
