By Mariana Velasco
For me, the most interesting is how the cultures of different countries affect how business is done, which changes how much people work, how hard they work, and why they work – everything is different and that is so cool.
The Basics: Matteo is a sophomore potentially concentrating in Management and OIDD or BEPP from Austin, Texas with an Italian heritage from his mom ́s side and a natural tendency towards leadership positions and service to the community.
Stellar phrases:
“Favorite part of Huntsman: the candy” “Even without HSAB we would be fine”
“What else do you do on campus? I eat. I like to eat a lot… Actually, I should eat more”
“Honestly, if everyone is slightly above average… we are all average”
What do you do outside of class? I am the president of the water polo team, so that is a lot of fun. I am also a representative for our class – my favorite part about HSAB is that there is so much that we can do for the Huntsman community. I want to be in organizations when I am actually doing a lot of work, where I can make an impact and benefit other people. That’s why I am part of a club at Penn that teaches kids how to swim during five weekends in the spring semester and really involved with the Catholic Church on campus.
What are some random things that we don’t know about you? Spencer and I go gambling on horse races and it is really so much fun. I also want to learn how to play chess because it is a very analytical game. In fact, if I were to drop out of college and did not have to worry about money at all, I would spend the entire semester learning how to become a chess grandmaster. Also, the Huntsman funding for research this past summer was amazing. I literally went to Italy and studied the motivation to work for the Italian youth.
How would you describe your college journey so far? I don’t know, a lot of people watch movies about college and stuff, but I did not watch television growing up, so I really did not know what to expect from college. I guess that we are so focused on the Wharton classes that we really don’t get to take full advantage of everything. It is challenging because you want to take these very cool classes in the College, but we are at Wharton.
Do you think that your life at Penn changed you a lot? Oh yes. The whole point of going to college is to come and learn; if you leave college the same way you came in, you did something wrong and lost a lot of money doing so. And yeah, Penn is hard, like finance today, but that is just how you learn and you just have to go through it.
Huntsman to Huntsman Student Tip: Follow my Spotify playlist at https://tinyurl.com/y59msfvn.
We are looking for passionate writers! If you want to interview another fellow Huntsmantie or write an article for the Huntsman student blog reach out to marianav@wharton.upenn.edu
