After months of anticipation, we’ve arrived! After landing in Milan on Monday morning and settling into Aparto, my Lehigh classmates and I were welcomed with the IES Welcome Dinner at Torre Branca. Here, we were able to meet IES staff and students abroad from other universities. During the first two days, we became familiar with Milan public transportation, toured our classroom locations, attended IES orientation, and did a test-run commute to our internship locations. My classmates and I also took Italian language classes learning basic words, phrases, and customs. We practiced the Italian we learned by speaking with students at Universita Catolica and by ordering coffee! After a few days of exploring Milan, I traveled to Lago Maggiore led by IES. It was a lot of fun spending time with my classmates while experiencing the beauty and history of the three islands of Lago Maggiore: Isola Bella, Isola del Pescatori, and Isola Madre.
I began my internship at Fin+Tech Startupbootcamp (SBC) this week – a startup accelerator that provides both financial and operational support to companies at their seed level. SBC is a 3-month program that fosters the growth of ~15 companies and connects them with mentors, investors, and partners. My first day consisted of onboarding and understanding what the values are as well as my role as an intern. I will be researching potential startups and guiding them through the application process as well as researching and contacting investors who provide seed-level investments. I was introduced to the database Crunchbase, which helped me to begin researching investors and startups. I look forward to forming relationships with the team at Fin+Tech SBC and making connections with innovative startups and investors.
During class this week, we learned more about Adam Smith and his belief that a free market, without intervention, is the ideal economy. During the in-class video surrounding Smith’s ideas, an analogy to the free-market system I found insightful was to park signs that read, “Please do not feed the animals” as doing this inhibits their ability to survive on their own. The “Smithian” idea to put a sign like this in Washington DC is to promote corporations (people) to be able to compete and thrive on their own. Also in class, I gained a new perspective from our discussions that a corporation could be considered simply as people – ranging from the C-suite to investors to employees. We began learning the responsibility those people have to one another, stakeholders, and the environment. Our class took a trip to Circularity, a Milan-based company offering consulting services on the implementation of a circular economy business model. During the visit, I was truly able to see the impact CSR has on society, and I am eager to further expand my perspectives further throughout the next 6 weeks.
