Week one of our class on Corporate Social Responsibility has concluded and before we  delve deeper into the concepts of the class, we began by learning about the foundations of our modern system of governance and exchange. We learned about the life and works of the father of modern Economics, Adam Smith, in a documentary about his exploration of morality and commerce. The documentary explained his early conceptualizations of the price system, and how competition and price drove the markets. He explores the morality of man both in exchange and in general life. The second part of the documentary focused on Smiths’ famous work called The Wealth of Nations. This book explores the concepts of specialization and trade. In class we discussed the brief quiz we took before we arrived in Italy and debated some of our perceptions of the morality of corporations and the structure of our capitalist system. 

This week at my internship I was able to meet a few of my coworkers for the first time. My first time coming to the office I was able to meet the vice president of Fondazione Franco Albini and learn more about what the mission of the firm is. In addition to sharing the design and architecture impact of Franco Albini, the major project that me and my partner Le Yang will be working on is the development of Casa Albini, an incubator for young architects in Sardinia. Le and I have begun working on developing a presentation and pitch to potential sponsors of the project and hope to continue to develop financial support for the project. This week we have been researching similar programs for contemporary artists across the globe and hope to develop a funding strategy based on the previous successes of other programs. Our office is in a gorgeous area of the city and a simple perk of working for a designer and architect is the beautiful modern workspace we get to share. 

My first week here has been simply amazing. Upon arriving I immediately clicked with the other people on the trip and we have spent a lot of time together not only exploring Milan, but also traveling to Lago Maggiore and Cinque Terre. Here in Milan on our first night we traveled using the tram and the metro which I had had little experience with before but with the guidance of our resident advisor, we were able to find our way through the city. We passed by the Duomo, which is probably the single most beautiful building I have ever seen in my life, walked through the castle, through the park, and finally arrived at the Torre Branca. The view from the top was amazing and me and my friends were able to catch it right as the sun set. We enjoyed Italian cuisine and drinks and got to spend some time speaking with the IES advisors and Professor Gupta. Throughout the week we had our orientation and learned a little bit about some of the cultural differences between the US and Italy. I have definitely experienced some of this in my interactions with my internship where some of the differences in work culture made the adjustment tricky. This weekend we were lucky enough to get absolutely gorgeous weather during our trip to Lago Maggiore, where we traveled between the islands of the lake and saw some of the amazing homes of the Borromeo family. The lake was absolutely stunning and despite my choppy Italian while trying to order lunch, we were able to integrate and explore seamlessly.