We’re honored to be the first co-editors in the history of the Daily Trojan Magazine. As one of our publication’s newest sections, the magazine continues to evolve. This month’s magazine serves as a blueprint for its bright future. This is issue 10, but it’s also a new beginning.

We hope to kickstart our semester with a larger focus on the USC community, encouraging stories that tie this magazine directly to the community it serves. We’ve also codified the six categories that will encompass the magazine going forward.

The existing Campus and Culture labels are being joined by four new categories. Research, which will encompass stories that incorporate data and analysis; Multimedia, which will contain all photo essays and cartoons; Perspectives, our opinion, personal essay and fiction category; and The Back Page, an intentionally esoteric and unpredictable section that will close out each magazine.

That said, just because we’re focusing on USC and streamlining our categories doesn’t mean we’re limiting our magazine’s potential. We’re looking forward to the limitless possibilities that lie ahead for the magazine in the future — and some of those additions are already in the works.

In this month’s magazine, Alexa Rubinstein explores the landscape of women in fitness at and around USC; Molly Phan confronts the rapidly changing nature of LinkedIn; Maria Laguna emerges with a fresh and gripping take on the need for academic validation; Anna Jordan inaugurates The Back Page with a hilarious, personal look into the pig-racing scene in rural Montana. This month’s cover story by Miranda Huang is a surprising and intimate look into a group of unsung heroes at USC: residential assistants. Plus, Jake Berg and Curtis Luong’s Weekly Frame showcases the unexpected beauty found in graffiti throughout South Central Los Angeles.

We’d like to offer special thanks to all artists and photographers who contributed to the magazine, led by art & design director Vivienne Tran as well as photo editors Ethan Thai and Henry Kofman. Our assistant editors for this semester, who help shape the magazine’s layout and overall production, are Melissa Grimaldo and the aforementioned Rubinstein. Finally, we’re grateful for the guidance of our managing editor and Spring 2025 editor in chief Stefano Fendrich.

In an uncertain time for student journalism, we hope this new magazine — the first print edition in Daily Trojan Magazine history — leads to more ground broken and stories told.