Itinerary: Back to School

In a region full of year-round schools and year-round good weather, it’s hard to think of the week after Labor Day as somehow different. But it is, a little. A new class of 5-year-olds is heading off to kindergarten, and a new group of 18-year-olds is starting college. It’s time for football and new notebook-filler paper--two key signs that it is, indeed, back-to-school season.

Even if you’re out of school, there are plenty of opportunities to hang out on campus--and maybe even learn something--that don’t require homework.

Thursday

Shopping and school might seem antithetical, but they come together nicely at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (919 S. Grand Ave., downtown Los Angeles, [213] 624-1200). Its Scholarship Store (open Monday-Thursday, 9 a.m.-6 p.m.; Friday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m.; also open 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sept. 16, Oct. 21 and Nov. 18) receives clothes and fabric donated by retail stores and sells them--at still way-low prices--to fund scholarships. It’s part TJ Maxx, part Fashion District.

Friday

There’s a little night music available at USC Friday, when saxophonist Wayne Shorter joins USC’s Thornton Symphony for the President’s Distinguished Artist Series.

Shorter has explored most facets of jazz, playing with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Miles Davis, Maynard Ferguson, then forming the influential fusion group Weather Report with Joe Zawinul. The concert is in Bovard Auditorium at 7 p.m. ([213] 740-2167, $25; $10, seniors, faculty or staff; $5, USC students).

Or pick up a little school spirit at the movies Friday night. Of this summer’s crop of school films, “Bring It On” (PG-13 in general release) seems to have elicited cheers from both critics and audiences. Kirsten Dunst plays the captain of a San Diego high school cheerleading squad that is about to defend its national title. Then she finds out the routine was stolen from a Compton high school team her squad must compete against.

Saturday

If you think science and math are about hard facts and art is about abstract aesthetics, two exhibitions at local colleges might mix you up a bit.

“Mathematica” at the Art Center College of Design’s Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery (1700 Lida St., Pasadena. Tuesday-Sunday, noon-5 p.m.; Thursday, noon-9 p.m. Ends Oct. 1. [626] 396-2244) is a re-creation of one of the best-known exhibition designs by husband-and-wife team Charles and Ray Eames. It includes six displays on celestial mechanics, the Mobius strip, probability, topology, minimal surfaces, projective geometry and multiplication.

There are no tests.

Another scholarly exhibition is at the Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery at Scripps College (1030 Columbia Ave., Claremont. Tuesday-Thursday, noon-8 p.m.; Friday-Sunday. noon-5 p.m. Ends Oct. 15. [909] 607-3397). The artwork in “In the Mind’s Sky: Intersections of Art and Science” incorporates images inspired by looking through a microscope or telescope.

Sunday

Who knew learning could be so much fun?

The Groundlings (7307 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, [323] 934-9700) is not only a theater, but a school for those who want to learn the quick-witted ways of comedy improv. The Sunday-night show, “Smackdown Sunday” (at 7:30 p.m., $12), is where the apprentice company shows its stuff.