This June, Roscini headed to State Street, a Boston-based financial firm that partners with institutional investors all over the world, providing investment management, investment research and trading, and investment servicing. Roscini worked out of the company's London office, shadowing professionals in all areas of the financial services field.
"I definitely learned a lot, more than I thought I would," Roscini said.
Roscini, who will begin Year 12 at the British School of Boston this fall, joined his Year 11 classmates this June in completing work experience assignments. All students were required to find a job shadow opportunity in Boston, or elsewhere, that allowed them to get a look at a field they were interested in.
Students visited doctor's offices, hospitals, mechanics shops and more, participating in hands-on learning activities for two weeks.
For Roscini, it was a family connection that landed him his gig at State Street.
The weeks he spent at the company, he said, were eye-opening.
"Just being able to see the atmosphere of where people work, to see how people act at work, and how it differed from school life was interesting," he said. "It was super fast-paced, with everyone shouting and beeping going all over the place. It was really fun... The office is a really wonderful and scary world that I was able to see a little bit of."
Roscini spent some time with employees of each of the company's departments, but said he was most intrigued by the foreign exchange trading.
He sat in on a morning meeting with foreign traders, listening as they discussed everything from the state of the economy to the top headlines around the world to prepare for their day of trading. He looked on and learned as they bought and sold shares around the world to make profits.
He also spent some time in the company's research department, and participated in his own research project while working with the company. To learn more about the finance world and expand his research and writing techniques, he read through and summarized Financial Times articles.
Roscini said that while he had not learned much about finance during his years at BSB, many of the skills he gained while studying in the high school did help him during his work experience.
"Just being able to organize my thoughts, to use my general writing skills, I found very helpful," he said. "I was given a lot of graphs, and interpreting them was quite easy for me, because I had been exposed to a lot of graphs in physics, chemistry and math, and was able to adapt my knowledge to the finance world."
Going forward, Roscini said he believes his time at State Street will have a profound impact on his education. Not only did he gain interpersonal and professional skills and boost his finance knowledge, he had the opportunity to explore a field that interests him before applying to college and choosing a higher education institution.
Having that experience, he said, means he will be able to make stronger choices when preparing for and applying to college, and will head into higher education confident in his choice of majors.
"It's being able to see what the future looks like," he said. "I could have gone in there and seen that it wasn't for me, but now I am even more thrilled to try it out again.
"There's no other way to learn something better than to experience it."