Numbers people and literary people aren’t supposed to mix. But try telling that to Daniele Costanzo.
Certainly, the fourth-year Economics major knows his numbers. He’s been a Dean’s List honoree every year at Carleton, and won an award last year as teaching assistant of the year in Economics.
“Dan is an excellent Economics student,” says Prof. Simon Power, ”and a wonderful teaching assistant — bright, conscientious, enthusiastic and personable.” Adds Troy Joseph, who nominated Dan for the teaching award: “Attendees of his tutorials praise his ability to make abstract and complex economic concepts easy to understand. They appreciate his patient and upbeat approach.”
“Sometimes I think I’m a jack-of-all-trades,” Dan muses, “but I don’t think that’s a problem." The senior Economics major is also editor of In/Words, the university literary magazine.
Dan is drawn to the areas of trade and development economics in particular, an interest he traces back to a family vacation years ago in the Dominican Republic. “I saw the poverty there and that stuck with me.“ He hopes to enroll in graduate school and then parlay his knowledge into policy work on development.
But this was no life-long dream. Dan didn’t think about Economics until taking a Grade 12 class at Ottawa’s St. Pius X High School. “I had a great economics teacher who pushed Carleton a bit,” he says. “He was a great influence on me.” It didn’t hurt that his dad is an economics graduate, too.
In fact, when he came to Carleton, Dan enrolled in English. “I told myself in high school I’d never do math again,” he laughs. But he missed economics and found himself helping his friends in that field figure things out. He signed up for a math course in his second semester, took ECON1000 in the summer, and switched majors by fall.
“I didn’t want to leave English completely, though,” he adds. “I wanted to keep in touch with that side of myself.” So he talked things over with his first-year English instructor, Collett Tracey, who suggested he work for In/Words, the university literary magazine. He’s been an editor for three years, and admires the talented writers who’ve appeared there. “It’s not just for English majors,” he notes.
The magazine is just the beginning of his extracurricular activity. Though not as athletically active as he was in high school – he captained the soccer team and played the sport regionally with the Nepean Hotspurs – he plays intramural soccer at Carleton and recently took up Thai boxing. For seven years, he’s also coached touch football at his former elementary school.
He plays bass in The Red Jets, a band he joined in Grade 10. It’s won a $5,000 development grant, and opened for such acts as the Northern Pikes and Trooper.
And he was the only Canadian among 70 participants last summer at a week-long symposium at Pennsylvania’s Bryn Mawr College on poverty and prosperity. It was sponsored by the Institute of Humane Studies, a libertarian organization. That was part of the attraction: “I’m certainly not a libertarian, but I was attracted to seeing another perspective than mine. And it didn’t hurt that it was a week away, all expenses paid.”
Calling it “the best week for learning I’ve ever had,” he was exposed to experts from fields as diverse as anthropology and philosophy. Meeting students from all over the world was enriching, he adds. “I still keep in touch with quite a few. Just the other day, I discussed econometrics with someone from Nigeria.”
“Sometimes I think I’m a jack-of-all-trades,” Dan muses, “but I don’t think that’s a problem. It’s good to be well rounded. I don’t think I’m there yet, but it’s good to try.”