By: Paul Samaha ‘17

This past Friday, I attended and attentively listened to MINDS MATTER: USC Policy on Student Mental Health, a panel discussion on the topic of mental health and what it means to USC specifically. This event was a part of the USC ZYGO series, which is a student lunchtime panel series on ethics and medicine. What made this particular panel special was the variety of voices heard– from USC Student Body President Rini Sampath, to the Engemann Health Center Medical Director Dr. James Jacobs. As you can imagine, the approaches from each of the six panelist were all very different. But there was one commonality between them all: Mental health matters, and we all need to do more as a Trojan family to improve the mental wellbeing of our student body.

By: Rini Sampath ‘16

I love the analogy that success is like an iceberg — you only see 5-10% of what goes on, but rarely see the labors beneath the surface. I think the same goes for mental health.

By: Rini Sampath, ‘16

This weekend, the 2015-2016 USG team and I traveled to the City of Industry for our annual fall retreat to kick off the year with team building activities, diversity training, and planning for our year of advocacy, programming, and funding.

By: Paul Samaha ‘17

“My name is Andrew Menard, and I am the undergraduate student body president. I come to you now as President who only has a couple short months left…”

By: Paul Samaha ‘17

A few months ago, I was sitting in Nature’s Brew café studying. I saw that the Undergraduate Student Vice President Rini Sampath was calling me, and I could only think two things: this is either something really good, or terribly bad. Thankfully, it was the former. Rini Sampath explained to me on the phone that she was running for president with Jordan Fowler as her running mate. Rini asked me if I would be interested in being on the Rini Jordan “core 5” team and help them with the PR for their campaign. As someone who looks up to both Rini and Jordan with immense respect, I was so stunned and honored that I screamed “YES!” before Rini could even finish her question.

By: Lauren Brose ‘15

Rini Sampath and Jordan Fowler are the first all-female running ticket in USC and Pac-12 history. Despite a discouraging remark from a fellow peer–– who expressed her concerns of having two female student leaders––Rini and Jordan have received an overwhelming amount of support from both men and women, Greek and non-Greek students alike. They’re also the most endorsed ticket in USC history, currently standing tall with 48. I had a chance to meet with them after their debate and discuss platform points, USG background, and how these two accomplished women came to become partners in crime this USG election.