Samantha Pape 340

Enlighten to Empower Our mission is to inspire future generations to follow their dreams through educational empowerment. I have been passionate about education since I began working with Há Esperança the summer after my freshman year at USC. Há Esperança is a social business organization based in Brazil that provides educational materials to children in the favelas of Rio and offers supplementary learning opportunities. Their work was particularly important during the pandemic when kids could no longer go to schools, but also had no way to attend remotely. While working with them, I got to see and was inspired by the impact education can have on the lives of children. This desire to have an impact on equal educational opportunities has followed me throughout my college career and I particularly love the idea of helping to inspire the next generation to follow their biggest dreams. This led me to the creation of Enlighten to Empower. Enlighten to Empower ultimately aims to provide more...

World We Dare to Imagine Part 1 If I could follow any dream or passion to make the world a better place, I would focus on education. Equal opportunity for education is something that I have been interested in since high school, when I realized all of the opportunities I had been given that others never have access to.  This ultimately inspired me to work with Há Esperança after my freshman year here at USC. Há Esperança is a NGO based in Brazil that focuses on providing educational materials to children in the favelas of Rio. I acted as a project consultant for them at the onset of COVID to help with their marketing and fundraising efforts to ensure that the children would have access to reading materials during the pandemic. By working with them over the course of the summer, I got to see the impact that education has on children and solidified my interest in providing equal opportunities for it.  So, ideally I would like to work towards all children across the world being ab...

The Definitive Ranking of the High School Musical Movies A topic that has caused multiple screaming matches in my house, the High School Musical movies stir up significant amounts of passion between me and my roommates. Up for discussion: what is the best and worst High School Musical movie? As a movie franchise that defined our early lives, we pull no punches in determining who is wrong. So, I present to you: the definitive ranking of the movies in the High School Musical franchise. Because I am right, and all of my roommates are wrong.  High School Musical The first High School Musical movie is undoubtedly the best simply because of its classic nature. That and the fact that it is the only one with an original plot considering the other two are the exact same story. Therefore, the first movie wins just because it was, in fact, the first. Let us also consider the music. While not the best soundtrack of the three movies, all of the songs are iconic in their own right. Most importan...