My first experience with the Daily Trojan came some time around Aug. 17, 2022, when I tried to take fashion advice from “That’s Fashion, Sweetie.”

For anyone who isn’t familiar, “That’s Fashion, Sweetie” was a Daily Trojan fashion column that ran from Fall 2021 to Spring 2025 — truly an institution of the paper — but I didn’t know that yet. I had simply stumbled across it in DT’s orientation issue, which I picked up after moving into campus for the first time.

As an overstimulated freshman, flipping through the hulking 36-page paper helped me begin to understand what college life would mean, although I quickly realized I wasn’t the fashion article’s target audience. And for the past three years, DT has continued to give me so much, from an unhealthy amount of USC trivia to people whom I feel so lucky to have met and gotten to know. The opportunity to contribute to our campus community in this way has also been an incredible honor and privilege.

Many have tried to put into words what this paper means, but words fail to do it justice. Allow me to try anyway, in the only way I know how, with a metaphor.

Working at DT is like going to a middle school dance.

I remember going to homecoming in eighth grade and being confused when we all habitually formed a circle in the middle of the gym, only for nobody to enter the middle. Eventually, someone marched his way inside and started twirling around without a care in the world. Naturally, giggles and whispers spread throughout the crowd, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that us standing awkwardly on the outskirts were really the embarrassing ones.

That temptation to disengage has only gotten more prevalent as we’ve grown up, even as so much deserves our attention. Social media and artificial intelligence have defined this new reality. While both have their benefits, at their worst, unmemorable TikTok slop fills every passing moment, while ChatGPT or other generative AI products seem to pull the strings of everything from essays to arguments within relationships.

These pitfalls aren’t going away any time soon: Spring 2026 will be the first semester USC offers free, unlimited access to ChatGPT Edu; professors continue to reconsider their stances on AI use in the classroom; the doubts surrounding the value of a college degree are growing as attendance declines; grades remain inflated while the job market looks bleak; and the internet is being flooded with AI-generated deepfakes and disinformation that are nearly impossible to differentiate.

There’s no shortage of articles, Reddit posts and private conversations that reflect how this new reality — while we try our best to shrug it off — is tearing us apart. It’s no surprise that so many people are opting out of society when so much of it feels useless.

The nights when it’s my turn to finish laying out the print newspaper alone in the newsroom are often when this feeling becomes the strongest. I remember one October night in particular: It was roughly 3 a.m. There was so much work I was behind on, and there I was playing with the spacing between letters. 

But as I moved my cursor through the lines of text, the screen became hazy as I started to tear up. The article felt like it was speaking directly to me.

“I’m not saying that you should ignore the thorns when you stop to smell the roses — but make sure you do smell them,” the article read. “I promise there will be something in those simple interactions that will show you just how unshakeable the human spirit is.” 

This human spirit shows up in many ways on campus, though I’m most acquainted with our media — whether it be an intrepid independent newsletter, a multimedia teaching newsroom or a satirical news site. All of these help us process and respond to the world around us, something that is crucial to maintaining our humanity in a world that seems determined to rip it away. 

That’s why working at DT feels like dancing in the middle of the circle — a space in which most people aren’t going along with the crowd — where I’ve found people who have inspired and taught me so much; who have seen me through my best and worst moments; who have written and edited articles inside the airport, or at the hospital, or in the Dulce line, at all hours of the day, because it brings so much meaning to them; and who, in doing so, attempt to give something back to those around them. 

All of this would have never happened if I just took that orientation issue inside my room and never came out. And it wouldn’t have happened if, once I came to DT, there weren’t people who were willing to help me grow until I was ready to take the reins. 

I know that we still have a long way to go in that regard. Even as we’ve taken important steps this semester to connect with alumni, strengthen our training, and expand a culture of wellness, transparency and collaboration, the job is far from finished. But I also trust that we will continue to work on doing better.

Our community desperately needs opportunities to foster a shared sense of humanity. Whether it means joining an organization, reaching out to friends and family or just exploring the world around you — perhaps through picking up a copy of the Daily Trojan — I urge everyone to make a step toward bringing that vision to life.  

Doing so means tapping back into our vulnerability; so much of life’s promise is hidden behind the walls that we put up for ourselves. Trust me, I’m a huge cornball, as everyone in my life loves to remind me, but each time someone laughs when I do something corny, I can only smile and know I’m on the right path.

Because of course, it brought me here, and for that I’m so grateful.

“Editors’ Epilogue” is a rotating column featuring a different Daily Trojan editor in each installment writing about their personal experiences. Nathan Elias is a senior majoring in journalism and is the editor-in-chief at the Daily Trojan.