Meet Mark Dellostritto MCP-HCED ’25

Name: Mark Dellostritto
Hometown: Cheshire, CT
Program: Master of City Planning

Question 1: What is your best Weitzman memory? OR Why did you choose Weitzman?
I think arguably my best day as a Weitzman student was the day of my second-year studio group’s final presentation. (More details about the studio are written out in response to the final question). Our group was fortunate to be able to present virtually to over a dozen stakeholders from Vermont, where our studio was focused, all of whom expressed their appreciation for our work and were already discussing ways that they could potentially go about implementing our recommendations during the presentation, which was awesome in and of itself. More than that, however, I think this was such a special day for me because watching my fellow classmates present their work, and thinking about the work that I had presented myself, I felt incredibly proud of how much we had done over the past four months or so in the course to get that point, but also how much each of us had learned over the past year and a half in the MCP program. Many of my groupmates, including myself, had no planning expertise before coming to Weitzman, and seeing everyone talking about fluvial erosion, floodable parks, infill housing plans, and so much more to people who could actually make these projects happen, I was amazed and really proud of how far we’ve all come in such a short time, while also being excited for all that we will do in the future.

Question 2: One tip to help make the transition into grad school?
Grad school can be all-consuming if you let it. You can always be doing extra readings, making a few extra maps, or filling your free time with some other school-related thing. While it’s of course important to try your best and put a lot into your Weitzman education so you can get out what you want, my tip would be to make sure that you keep some time reserved for yourself. I have multiple Weitzman friends who came back to school after working full-time for a few years and have said how hard and time-consuming grad school is in comparison, and even as someone who went into grad school straight after I finished my undergrad degree, I feel like I still need to give myself this tip or reminder often. Take some time to enjoy Philly, be in community with your Weitzman classmates at one of our bi-weekly Happy Hours; those things will only heighten your grad school experience and keep you motivated for your actual classwork.

Question 3: Share your favorite project from Weitzman.
Project: Second-Year Planning Studio – Central Vermont Flood Adaptation Planning
Instructors: Scott Page, Jamie Granger
Groupmates: Miranda Ayres, Varun Bhakhri, Jiayue Ma, Christina Moss, Julia Nema, Zach Somberg, Yujin Song, Stewart Tillyer, Lu Yii Wong, Emily Zhou

My second-year studio focused on recovery from recent flooding events, and improving resiliency against future flooding, in three Central Vermont towns: Montpelier, Barre, and Plainfield. This was my favorite project that I’ve been able to work on during my time at Weitzman for a variety of reasons, one of them being that it was very interdisciplinary and touched on a number of different parts of planning, including environmental planning, transportation, and housing. However, the major reason why I enjoyed the project so much was because of how much we were able to engage with stakeholders from Vermont, both at the state level and more locally, through Zooms throughout the semester and in-person meetings when we actually visited the state during Studio Travel Week. Not only did those stakeholders give us tons of valuable insights, data, and feedback that helped shape our work, but it made the project feel very “real-world,” especially considering the fact that it sounds like they intend to try and implement a lot of the recommendations we made in our plan going forward, which is really exciting.