The 2024 Invest for Kids Summer Investment Challenge at DePaul University isn’t your typical summer camp.
For one, an early high point for the participants — handpicked from among Chicago Public Schools high school students — was playing around with Excel spreadsheets.
“As they started to use Excel on their own, they lit up,” said Brianna Quast, a rising junior studying economic data analysis at DePaul.
“When they realized that they weren’t going to save the test project they did, they were so disappointed,” echoed Burak Gulsen, a rising sophomore studying finance at Driehaus. “One student ended up taking a picture with her spreadsheet.”
Gulsen and Quest, along with rising junior and finance major Dalen Horace and rising senior and actuarial science major Samantha Peluso, are mentors for the program. All four were selected for their finance acumen — and because they have similar backgrounds to the high school students who participate.
“This program is close to my heart. It gives students these really unique, firsthand encounters with a potential career path,” said Professor of Finance Vahap Uysal, who directs the program. “Many of our students are students of color, or low-income, or would be the first in their family to go to college. So I try to select mentors who share those backgrounds.”
The program is free to attend thanks to its sponsors: Invest for Kids, Protiviti, CME Group Foundation, Driehaus Capital Management and Prime Trading. It includes hands-on skills sessions and site visits to local companies, including many of the sponsors. It culminates with a pitch competition, in which teams of students make the case for investing in a company of their choice to a panel of judges from DePaul’s institutional investing team.
For the mentors, the Institute offers the chance to grow as a mentor — and to grow in their own careers at the same time.
“It’s an opportunity for us, as mentors, to get to network with these companies,” said Peluso. “Professor Uysal says that he loses his mentors to these companies all the time.”
It’s an opportunity that’s led many of the mentors to consider their own growth from a new perspective.
“I know, for me, coming in, it was kind of daunting to talk to professionals doing the things I wanted to do,” said Horace. “Professor Uysal does a great job of teaching them how to ask questions: how to really get to know if finance is for them.”
“Most of them know that they want to do finance,” said Quest. “Which is so impressive to me! And it’s very helpful to go speak to professionals. It’s the motivation I need.”
Quest came into the program with experience working directly with Chicago Public Schools students through the Cities Mentor Project. What she loves most, she said, is getting to see students experience “lightbulb moments.”
“I just want them to know that the opportunities are endless for them,” she said. “I want them to know that it’s amazing that they’re doing this so young. We tell them that, and I don’t think they realize it.”
For the other mentors, the Summer Finance Institute was their first experience in a formal mentorship role.
“Personally, I come from a small, Turkish community,” said Gulsen, “where there’s always mentoring. Once you get to a certain age, you start mentoring younger kids; you pass the torch. So I’d experienced it in a cultural way, but now I’m experiencing it with older kids, for finance.”
Horace and Peluso didn’t have formal mentorship experience, either.
“I love learning about finance myself,” said Horace, “so I love helping the kids learn about finance too. It’s definitely something I want to continue.”
“It’s a great leadership role,” said Peluso, “which is something I’m always looking for. It prepares me for the world I’m entering. To be a mentor in workplaces; to be a leader.”
The mentors’ biggest takeaway, though, might just be the way that the experience has led them to reflect on their own growth in a new light.
“It’s reminded me that I need to not lose the curiosity they have,” said Quest. “In college, you can feel like you’re not good enough. And I would never say that to these kids.”
“The same way that we’re saying it’s amazing that they’re just in high school and doing all of this—” said Gulsen— “we’re just in college! It’s a good reminder that we should always be looking out for mentors. We should always be asking questions, looking for advice. Seeing them doing that shows us just how important it is.”
Learn more about the Invest for Kids Summer Investment Challenge.