This entire semester, I’ve found myself returning to the familiar idea: “Leave a place better than you found it.” Now, with just 25 days until graduation, that idea feels more urgent than ever.

I keep asking myself if I have truly made a difference at USC during my time here or if I simply am one of the 18,000 students walking the stage, becoming another USC alum lost in the sea of faces since the University’s first graduating class in 1884.

It’s been a humbling experience thinking about whether I’ve had an impact. I know each Trojan has contributed in big and small ways to make USC what it is today, but I wonder if there is anything worthwhile I have done to join this legacy. My contribution doesn’t have to be becoming the 327th Trojan who won a medal at the Olympics or being invited back as a commencement speaker 20 years down the road, but I would like to think I’ve left some mark. 

As I often do when I’m searching for fresh perspectives, I called a few friends and asked them what they felt their impact at USC has been. Their answers varied widely: serving as resident assistants supporting both prospective and current students, mentoring others as teaching assistants or senior members of clubs, having meaningful conversations that helped their friends, standing up for inequities they witnessed, and encouraging students from underrepresented communities to pursue certain majors.

Despite these different experiences, there is a clear common thread tying them all together. Impact is rooted in how we show up for and support others, whether it’s our peers or future Trojans. Realizing this brought me back to a very specific memory.

During my first week at USC, I found myself at Doheny Memorial Library, going down a rabbit hole of Daily Trojan archives, when I came across an article titled “An ode to student journalism,” written before I had even decided to attend USC. I don’t remember the details, but I remember feeling inspired when I read Twesha Dikshit’s lines about the importance of journalists serving their audience by sharing pieces of themselves. 

I reread that article earlier today to write this one, and there are these funny coincidences: she and I both are from India, she also had clippings of every article she wrote in the Daily Trojan and both our columns ran on Mondays. It felt like a full-circle moment. I am in a similar spot as the person who wrote an article nearly four years ago to this date that inspired me to be a part of the Daily Trojan. 

That’s when it hit me. My mark at USC is the writing I’ve done for the Daily Trojan.

Through the years, I’ve poured my heart out in these articles, whether I’m writing about not having a designated friend group, advocating for greater support for international students or dissecting my deeply-rooted reliance on external validation. I didn’t always have the answers and sounded cringe at times, but I wrote anyway. 

I wrote in the hope that someone else feeling out of place, alone or unsure could see a piece of themselves in my words and feel less so. Even for readers who haven’t applied to USC yet, I have been thinking out loud for them.

My mark at USC may not be grand or widely recognized, but it’s exactly what I would want it to be. 

As I sign off for the last time and cut the final clipping of my work, I am filled with gratitude. To the Daily Trojan, thank you for giving me a platform to share my innermost thoughts. To my seven loyal readers — three of them being my family and two being my editors — thank you for your support. 

And to anyone reading this, now or in the future, if there is something you take away from this article, I hope it’s this: You are going to be okay, you are not alone in whatever you are feeling, and there is a place for you here, now and always.

Edhita Singhal is a senior writing about life lessons she has learned in college in her column, “Thinking Out Loud,” which ran every other Monday.