The Trojan Empowering Student Entrepreneurs

Photo of Sarah Hakim
Sarah Hakim - graduating senior in the Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering. (Image / Lee Hernandez)

Sarah Hakim, ’23, helped create Trojan Marketplace, a student-run market featuring exclusively Trojan-owned small businesses.

As a young girl from Los Angeles whose dream job was to be an inventor, Sarah Hakim now has all the tools she needs to bring an idea to fruition. Hakim wasn’t entirely certain of her long-term goals when she first embarked on her engineering path. What she did have was a passion for bringing her own ideas to life.

“I thought it was cool that someone could think of something in their brain — they have an idea, and then they’ll just create it,” Hakim said. “Then, when it came to actually choosing something to pursue, I knew that engineering would give me the tools and the skills to actually create an idea. Even though I wasn’t ever really 100% sure of the passions I had or exactly what I wanted in the future, I knew engineering would give me the best foundation.”

Hakim rotated through various specializations throughout her time at USC, including civil engineering and mechanical engineering. She is now graduating from USC Viterbi as an industrial and systems engineer with a concentration in information systems.

Read more about Sarah’s story