Janiga's journey
Jason Janiga (BBA '21, MS '22) arrived at Loyola University Chicago looking for a career that tapped into his creativity. With the help of Quinlan professors and resources, he found his calling in the seemingly surprising business discipline of information systems.
Along the way, Janiga forged a path of academic excellence and community service. In recognition of this, he was selected as the 2023 President's Medallion recipient from the Quinlan School of Business.
Engaged in the classroom
Janiga's father, John Janiga, has been a Quinlan professor for more than 35 years and is part of a long family legacy at Loyola. After several suggestions from the senior Janiga, the younger Janiga chose marketing.
"I thought marketing would be a good connection between business and my creativity," Janiga said. "But then I took a class with Professor Nenad Jukic that changed my whole academic and career trajectory."
His passion for information systems started in Jukic's INFS 346 class on data and data warehousing systems, which challenged him and forced him to broaden his perspective. That, along with encouragement from his mother, Angie Janiga (BBA '93), a Quinlan graduate, led him to add an information systems minor to his marketing major.
"I realized that leveraging creativity could make information systems more impactful," Janiga said. "I'm able to take a substantial amount of information, analyze it, and develop insights. I use these insights to design dashboards to enhance short- and long-term decision making."
Janiga earned his bachelor's degree with high honors, then continued his education at Quinlan, earning a master's degree in information systems and analytics. At the same time, he was active in ten different organizations, both student and external, that ranged from volunteer programs to charities to social and professional fraternities.
A life-changing experience
Today, Janiga is earning his MBA at Quinlan while working for Vitality, a health and wellness company, as a data analyst. It's a position in which he is thriving.
"I love my job and the people I work with; it is a great culture," Janiga said. "I really feel that what my team and I do helps to better the lives of the people in our wellness program."
But his Loyola experience did more than prepare him for a career in information systems. Janiga said it changed him as a person.
"Both my classmates and professors pushed me to be a better person while I simultaneously made life-long friends from many different backgrounds and made incredible contacts for the future," he said. "I wouldn't change that for the world."
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