Giuseppe D. (2024)
Giuseppe is a third year student in the College majoring in Economics, and minoring in Molecular Engineering. Before moving to Chicago to start his undergraduate studies, Giuseppe went to Ladue Horton Watkins High School in St. Louis. In 2019, he founded VaiLocal after noticing the difficulties that students were having to find internships, jobs, and volunteering opportunities. Only three years later, in September 2022, he was recognized as one of the 10 young entrepreneurs/innovators in the city under 25 by the St. Louis Business Journal.
At the VaiLocal Giuseppe works with around 20 local businesses to create work, internships, and volunteering positions for students. He has always been interested in trying to level the playing field for everyone, and since 2019, he helped make over 100 placements into jobs, internships, volunteering positions, and tutoring opportunities. In the coming years, he hopes to expand this project, but at the moment, he is at UChicago building up the skills he needs to succeed in his own career path.
In the summer of 2021, Giuseppe participated in the Summer Institute in Social Research Methods (SISRM) where he took Computing for the Social Sciences to learn how to code. Following his passion for data, and using the knowledge he acquired in that class, Giuseppe worked for the rest of the summer with Professor Tomas Philipson, a renowned Harris professor known for his relationship with the White House. All summer long, Giuseppe worked in a research project about the relationships between different drugs that were approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and their pipeline at different phases. Giuseppe stated that:
“The most interesting thing I learned was, on the professional side, how to go through a difficult project like that over the span of a month, while also taking the foundation and learning by myself how to apply different skills to finish the project.”
Giuseppe is still working with Professor Philipson doing research, and they recently published a paper on price controls and the effect on medical innovation and national healthcare spending. Under Professor Philipson’s mentorship, Giuseppe learned how to write clearly and communicate effectively. He believes that the RAship he got through SISRM is one of the best things that happened to him as a student at UChicago.
For anyone who is considering applying to SIRSM, Giuseppe also shared some words of advice:
“SISRM is a unique opportunity to engage with professors and to take classes that you are not able to take during the academic year due to all the other responsibilities UChicago students have.”
He said that classes are hard, but learning those technical skills and later on being able to apply them is all worth it. Giuseppe loves entrepreneurship, and in the future, he wants to become the CEO of a company and make an impact in the community. He is aware that in business, one needs to understand data and data analysis, and SISRM offered him those skills.
Reflecting on his time at UChicago, Giuseppe said that he has not only acquired knowledge and skills, but that he has also realized he is capable of achieving his goals, regardless of how many challenges he has to overcome. At the beginning of his SISRM methodology course, he did not think he would be able to learn how to code, but he did. He knew coding was going to play an important role in his future plans, so he set his mind to it. Additionally, Giuseppe also learned that the “$1 milkshakes on Wednesdays are incredible.”
Bonus Question | Favorite study spot at UChicago: “5th floor of the Reg, by the window, looking outside, and seeing the view. Everyone’s quiet, and if you’re not quiet, you get death stares; people look at you differently.”