Last month, students took advantage of the 70-degree weather, ditching the library and sitting in the sunken gardens of Loyola Marymount to tan, dance, and study. There were more blankets than there was visible grass. Boxes of Ape Water sat on a stone wall lined with pink flowers and abandoned Nike sneakers.  The sun cast…

Within seconds of walking into one of her first castings, Gianna Shami, a 20-year-old student at Loyola Marymount University, felt as if she had gotten thrown into the ring. The competition was intense. “That kind of disgusted me,” Shami said. “At the end of the day, we were all sort of competing to see who…