Internship: This week at my internship, my company had a big event centered around fundraising in the third sector. I spent the entire day helping my company rearrange the office, set up chairs and supplies, and practice their portions of the speeches. I sat with one of my coworkers while she practiced her entire portion of the talk. While I couldn’t understand anything she was saying she was grateful. I also worked on the monthly press review my company puts out that contains a slew of articles related to ESG, B Corps, sustainability, etc. I enjoyed this as I was able to read articles from the WSJ, Financial Times, and even some European news outlets that I wouldn’t normally have read.

 

Class: This week in virtual class we watched Erin Brockovich a film starring Julia Roberts about companies dumping waste. When I originally told my office about watching A Civil Action they all thought I was talking about Erin Brockovich which is apparently a very popular movie not only with my company but my coworkers said it’s popular among a lot of Italy. I also had time to work on my research paper with my group, I found some of the research I did to be very interesting, such as Elon Musk releasing files that proved that Twitter censored information that was “contrarian but true” because it didn’t fit the narrative of the White House.

 

Culture: For our last weekend the entire group got an Airbnb in the Tuscan countryside. It was a 20 minute ride outside of Florence and 22 of us were able to make it and it was so much fun. We bought a bunch of food and cooked dinner both nights and relaxed all weekend. On Sunday we spent the day in Florence wandering around and seeing the city for the last time on this trip. I was able to find a jeweler who was able to fix my silver necklace and he did it for free. I bought a nicely painted bottle of meloncello and a charcuterie board made out of olive wood for my parents. 

My necklace that my dad got in Florence 30 years ago and gave to me  broke so I brought it back to Florence and was able to get it fixed

I love ramen and miss having it back home so I went with some people this week to get some

The before shot of the 1.2 kg steak I got in Florence

The after shot…

This week during class we had no physical, in-person class. During one of the class periods we were expected to watch the movie Erin Brockovich and our second class was canceled because we had a Friday field trip earlier in the summer. The movie Erin Brockovich was very interesting and thought provoking. The film was about a model turned law professional who gets involved in a $30+ million water contamination case. Brockovich initially took the job to earn enough money to pay her bills, but she quickly became interested and emotionally attached to the water contamination case of PG&E. Brockovich traveled daily to look for records or to meet with victims who consumed the contaminated water. Brockovich ended up winning the case and PG&E was forced to pay the victims and clean up the contaminated water. After watching the film, I answered a number of questions regarding CSR and how it related to the documentary.

 

This week during my internship my boss traveled to the United States to meet with clients so we were virtual for the week. I was assigned a week-long market research project about a topic that we discussed in our internship seminar class. Unfortunately last week’s “cooking class” was the final one of my trip to Italy with my boss. I am disappointed because that was a great time to bond with my coworkers and learn more about Italian culture and cuisine. To make up for no more cooking classes or lunches together, my coworker took the six interns out to lunch at my favorite pizza place Pizza e Mozzarella. This was a great experience and provided me with time to talk to my fellow interns and coworker. Hopefully next week we can do something similar.

 

Over the weekend I decided to finally stay in Milan for the whole time. I visited the Milan Duomo with my friends Bryan and Sam and we went to a nice (but expensive) brunch with a view of the Duomo. The Duomo was stunning and provided great views of the City of Milan. Once inside, we walked around and took in the breathtaking architecture. My favorite aspect of the Duomo was the stained glass windows. Every window in the Duomo was stained glass and each one had a unique design. When we got back from visiting the Duomo we looked into planning our final weekend in Italy: a group trip to a Tuscan villa. Luckily we found an Airbnb that was able to fit all 22 students that were interested in the trip.

 

A Lego replica of the Milan Duomo

The stunning stained glass windows inside of the Milan Duomo

Me and my coworkers at my favorite pizza place: Pizza & Mozzarella

 

This week, during my Internship at South Garage, we launched our TikTok! It was very exciting because we had been working on this project for a while. We launched two accounts, one for the bistro and one for South Garage’s other businesses, the custom motorcycle shop and boutique. The bistros videos featured the chef. The video is high quality because our coworker Matei brought his professional camera to Italy. It did not shock me when this video did well on Tik Tok because it looked exactly like the professional food videos I see all over the internet. The boutiques Tik Toks also did well. We posted one video that was an overview of the whole boutique and another video showing various pieces of clothing styled on Will as the model. The outfits we picked were very cool and high-end. We tagged multiple brands to increase our online interactions and used many hashtags. We also started working on the newsletter. We helped our boss translate his Italian version into an English version, as he wants the newsletter to be in both languages. It was overall a very successful week of work, and we are very happy with our success!

 

Our Corporate Social Responsibility class was canceled this week. Professor Gupta was generous enough to give us this week to used our free time to work on our final papers and presentations. My group was able to outline our paper and complete it using what would typically be our class time. We also had an assignment to watch the movie, Erin Brockovich. It was a really good movie, and I enjoyed watching it a lot as it related a lot to what we are talking about in class. Professor Gupta also gave us a series of questions to answer after the movie, which I found useful because I was able to look at them before to get an idea of what the movie would be about. This assignment was perfect because it was not super time-consuming so I worked a lot on my final project. Mason, Ava, Lili, and I have been very good about communicating about our project in a group chat, and we split up the paper in a very fair way. I was nervous about this paper at first because it seemed very daunting, but once I started working on it I realized that it is not as bad as it seems. As soon as I found my sources and started writing, my portions of the paper were completed before I knew it!

 

Last weekend we took a girls’ trip! Maddy, Lili, Sarah, Sylvia, Neave, Kat, and I traveled to Portofino. It was a very last-minute trip. Last weekend, we were initially going to go on a day trip to Lake Garda on Friday, stay put in Milan on Saturday, and go to the beach on Sunday. When we arrived at Centrale early Friday morning, we were all shocked to see that our train, along with multiple others. As it turns out, there was a strike going on, and as a result, many trains were canceled. At first, we were bummed, but we made the most of our day. We all went to brunch together, and then we booked our weekend trip. We went out to dinner and had amazing pasta. We ate at La Osteria Di Fortuna. It was so cool because we could see a woman inside through the window making homemade pasta. The next day, we took a train to Santa Margherita. We found a beach club and stayed there for the day. Later at night, we trained into Rapalo and checked into our AirBnB. We had an amazing dinner and roamed the streets of Rapolo until late at night. It did not feel touristy at all, which was also amazing. The next day, we traveled back to Santa Margherita and spent the day at the beach. The water was so blue! Overall, it was a very spontaneous and fun weekend!

Last weekend Ava, Sophia, Emily, Tiffany, and I ventured to Monopoli in the Puglia region of the heel of the boot of Italy. We stayed in a gorgeous stone Airbnb in the center of the town. We first arrived past midnight, so we did not think much of the night life, but nearing our apartment there were crowds of people eating and walking around the main square. The first morning we grabbed breakfast and some fruit from a produce shop for the beach. I got a carton of cherries and Emily got some peaches. The man was nice enough to wash the fruit for us and we snacked on the way to the beach nearby. The beaches were sand, rock, and grass. We swam out to the sandbar and watched people cliff jump. Sophia, Emily, and I ventured to the beach with the cliff and got nervous as it was higher than it seemed. We jumped a bunch until I tried to climb back up and fell back almost taking the man behind me in the water with me. After I swam back to the beach, Emily told me he went up to her when she was looking for me and said “sta bene” meaning I was fine and then reenacted me stumbling back while explaining in Italian. We went back to get ready for dinner and ate at this place called Apluvia with local food. It was so nice and the food was awesome. We got octopus, lobster, and cuttlefish and laughed as Sophia tried to crack the lobster claw and it shot across the table. Afterwards we all walked around the town, got gelato, and explored. The next day we walked around and shopped. It was a little cooler from the salty wind so not really a beach day. We saw a man painting by his shop and the streets were so narrow that we had to go into his shop for the car coming. He started to explain all of his paintings in Italian. I was able to translate some from my high school Italian class, but it was pretty self-explanatory with the paintings in front of us. His name was Gianni Comes and he used to be a fisherman as a Monopoli native. He used fishing nets, fishing jackets, jeans, and wood from the boats as canvases. He then ran around to shut off the lights except for one and put the fishing jacket canvas in front of it. The light glowed through the negative space in the paint, it was gorgeous. All of us were so blown away. He let us feel the paintings textured with fishing nets and other equipment and explained his theme of the “due amore” (two loves) and life. There would be two people or two sailboats and then life of the flowers, trees, and the city of Monopoli. Each of them was so detailed and beautiful. We all bought little ones from the wood from the fishing boats and he wrote messages about each of the paintings on the back. That was truly a highlight of our visit and really showed what beauty comes from Monopoli. We ate lunch on a rooftop for a view of the sea and ate more delicious seafood this time scallops, redfish, and more octopus. We then caught our flight home all exclaiming how Monopoli would be a place to visit again.

 

With this being our last full week, I am trying to explore all of the things I have not yet. Monday Emily and I climbed the stairs to the Duomo terrace which was gorgeous. I pass it twice a day and had not been inside yet. The interior was colossal. The stained glass was so colorful and contrasting against the gothic architecture. We also got to see the archeological area underneath which used to be a baptismal font covered in mosaics. Another place I have been meaning to go to is directly behind Aparto. It is a car themed restaurant called Officina that used to be an autobody shop and the atmosphere was very cool with framed pictures, vintage mirrors, and car signs covering the walls. The food was so delicious I got cacio e pepe which I had been craving for some time as it is not as popular in Milan being a Roman dish. For our last weekend we rented a villa outside of Florence that fit the whole group. It was so much fun to relax by the pool and play games with everyone all weekend. The view was so vast overlooking the Tuscan vineyards.

This week we did not have class as we were given more time to work on our final project. One homework assignment was to watch Erin Brockovich and discuss the movie questions in a group setting. The movie was similar to A Civil Action where it was a true story about small town’s groundwater being contaminated by a nearby plant. This time it was a huge gas and electric corporation instead of a local tannery and the main character was not a lawyer but needed a job and investigated the case and decided it was moral to fight back.

At Giuba 80 this week I had one of my friends model some polos for the Amazon storefront and I organized prices and TPIs for bookkeeping as this season’s book was becoming full. Tuesday we had a networking event in which my boss and coworker came to and spoke to some of my other friends and their colleagues. It was a fun time getting to hear about what everyone did for the month at their internships and what they thought about working international versus back at home. My coworker wanted to show me a few things before I left so we went to a horse race with her parents who go all of the time. It was so fun as I jump horses for the Lehigh Club Equestrian Team but have never been to a race which is a very different experience. The first race we bet 3 euros on a horse named Moorland Spirit to come in first. He was close in second and pushed for first when crossing the finish line. We won 7.50 euros! The second and third races were excellent as it was fun to go to something casual in the area. She then took me for lunch to City Life which was the most relaxed city looking place I have ever been in. Even inside the mall was not really crowded. I will miss my coworker and boss and plan to keep in touch and to meet up if I ever come to visit Italy again. They have given me great advice over this month and great places to come back to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This week, we did not meet in person for our corporate social responsibility course, however, we were still very busy with work for the class this week. On Monday, we watched the Film “Erin Brockovich” on our own time, which was about a water pollution court case. I enjoyed watching the film and I thought that it related strongly to our class. Then on Wednesday, Professor Gupta canceled class so that we could work on our final presentations for his class, which are due next week. My group of myself, Dane, and Sam Haft, is almost finished with the paper and we have begun making the presentation slides. Next week in class we will be presenting our slides and will have a short Q&A after each group’s presentation.

This week for my internship, Sachi and I went to the office on Tuesday and worked remotely the rest of the days. Our boss was back from his business trip and he said he had a great time. On Monday, we continued working on TikTok videos, mostly editing them. Then, on Tuesday, in the office, we created a TikTok page for the South Garage bistro and finally posted our first TikToks! We posted one on the main South Garage account that introduced the South Garage boutique and what it has to offer, and we posted one on the bistro account that showcased the chef making their octopus dish. The rest of the week, we posted a few more TikToks and continued filming/editing other ones. Sachi and I were also assigned a presentation where we look at and analyze what other boutiques are doing on TikTok successfully, and made a presentation showing our findings, which we will present next week.

My traveling this week was again mostly on the weekends. My main traveling took place from Saturday to Monday when Dane and I went to Catania, Sicily. We arrived in Sicily Saturday morning and were able to explore the city of Catania before meeting my girlfriend Ana and her friend Nicole for dinner. We got seafood for dinner and it was very tasty! On Sunday, we took a walk to the beach, however, it was slightly underwhelming so we did not stay for long. We then were able to eat more food and explore the city some more before our second night of dinner where Dane and I got more seafood. The seafood in Sicily was great since it is fresh from the ocean. We left Sicily on Monday morning and came back to Milan. The rest of the week I did not do any traveling except for going out for a few dinners, I was particularly busy this week since we had 2 presentations and papers to work on.

This week, we did not have our regular classes, but we were assigned to watch the movie Erin Brockovich. This movie told the story of a single mom with three kids who got into a car accident. She was represented by an attorney who she later worked for and helped with a case regarding Chromium 6 in the water, which was caused by a corporation called PG&E. This movie was very similar to the movie “A Civil Action”, which we watched in class earlier. Both of these movies depicted large corporations taking advantage of their power by hiding important health information from the public regarding unsafe water. There were many similarities I saw between these movies such as the struggles a plaintiff lawyer has to go through while investigating large corporations as well as the amount of effort it takes to reach a settlement. It was also interesting to see the struggles a single mom must face in a career that is so demanding.

In my internship this week, I helped my boss draft a speech regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. Since my boss is a labor attorney, he is making a speech about DEI in the workplace at an international conference. I learned about certain diversity and inclusion policies in the workplace in Europe. This was a very interesting task to work on, as I have learned a lot about DEI from my position in my sorority. Additionally, I was in contact with the New York co-chair of my boss’s international association of lawyers. We discussed the potential addition of firms I found for their network. It was a big change to be speaking with someone from the U.S., rather than someone from Italy. Finally, I began working on a labor law article for my boss.

This past Sunday, Sophia, Bella, Emily, Tiffany, and I finished up our weekend in Puglia. We explored the area more while stopping in shops and gelaterias along the way. Puglia was even more breathtaking than I expected, as it had a very strong Mediterranean influence. We finished our time in Puglia with a rooftop lunch at a beautiful restaurant with an amazing view of the Adriatic Sea. It was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to. I stayed in Milan for my last weekend, as my family is coming to visit this weekend. I am very excited to see them after being in Europe for so long. We are going to travel throughout Italy as well as France together. This is the best way to end a great trip!

(1) Academic Course on Corporate Social Responsibility

This past week in class we discussed the Civil Action movie that we watched in class last week and also debated a case study involving Apple. The discussion surrounding Civil Action was focused on the environmental impacts major corporations can have and their corporate responsibility to their neighbors and consumers when considering that impact. In the movie, we saw two major corporations were being sued for contaminating drinking water which caused multiple children to get cancer. While the movie focuses mostly on the lawyer taking on the case for the families, it was interesting to see the lawyers for the companies portrayed, as well. The way companies try to throw money around to cover misdeeds like this one was depicted well in the movie, and it led to a healthy discussion in class about major corporations needing to both pay their shareholders while also being socially responsible. This led well into our discussion on Wednesday involving the Apple case study about Apple’s suppliers who have come under heat for poor working conditions for their factory workers. This discussion became pretty animated when the whole class joined in, and I felt as though everyone had pretty strong opinions on the way Apple should have treated their suppliers after the media exposed the conditions in the Asian countries where the suppliers are based. Overall, both discussions this week had the class using most of our knowledge thus far in this course, and we all have begun to form our own opinions on the social responsibility of corporations which we defended strongly in debates this week. 

(2) Practicum in Milan with an Italian Company

In my internship this week, I began doing a competitive analysis of the NIRVANA system for the product management team. BTS Bioengineering is visiting North Carolina this upcoming week for a conference involving biotechnologies, so while they prepared material and packed hardware to display there, I was completing the analysis for them to consider when marketing to distributors at the conference. I also helped plan a couple of logistical things for them in America such as finding a location to print posters and the best place to ship the materials for the booth. The competitive analysis I worked on involved researching direct competitors for NIRVANA and writing notes involving each product before comparing them in a competitors table and then producing a competitive map. While I still found NIRVANA to be the most immersive and advanced rehabilitation device, it was good to see what other companies were adding to their technology and what NIRVANA could mimic to become a stronger competitor. 

(3) Social and Cultural Immersion through Travels in Italy and Europe

This week my parents and family visited Milan before heading out on some of their own travels. With my birthday coming up next week, I also was able to celebrate with them a bit early at a Milanese restaurant my mom discovered. It was great to show my family around Milan and so exciting to feel like more of a local.

Later in the week, the Lehigh group also decided to explore the nightlife around Aparto a bit. We went to a bar right behind Aparto called Officina, and they ended up giving us a private room for our big group! We had a lot of fun being able to hang out all together outside of a work or academic setting and enjoyed exploring Milan at night a bit.

This weekend, a group of the girls took a girls trip to Portofino. We stayed at an Airbnb in Rapallo and visited the beaches at Santa Margherita. After a minor train issue on our way to Santa Margherita, we were able to relax and swim at the beach before heading to our Airbnb in Rapallo. The apartment had the most amazing view of the town and the sea, and we took full advantage of that for photos! After our photoshoot, we headed into town to find a seafood restaurant and had a three hour long dinner. The girls had a great time bonding and we are already planning a reunion girls trip for next year!

This past week at SuiteFood Tiffany and I had one of our final days in the office with our boss. It is shocking how fast our time interning has gone by and how much we have accomplished while there is so much more we could do. Emmanuela, our boss, has found a new love for content creating and has directed most of her focus on marketing by finding content ideas for Tiffany and I to recreate. Over the weekend Tiffany, Emmanuela and I brainstormed as many ideas as we could to make and publish before the product launch on July 1st. When we arrived on Monday Emmanuela had gathered tools and ingredients for us to use in videos. All day Tiffany and I creatively put everything to use and made eight postable reels to be used in the final days of promoting until the launch. It was extremely rewarding to see how happy and enthusiastic our boss was about her two interns making her ideas a visual reality. 

This week in class we watched the movie Erin Brockovich. This past semester in my management class we watched and discussed numerous clips from the movie and I had been looking forward to watching the full movie since! The movie is based on a true story about Erin Brockovich, a struggling single mother of three, and Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E). The story highlights the importance of corporate social responsibility as it is about PG&E knowingly contaminating water in a small town through chromium 6, a poison that can cause cancer and numerous other severe illnesses. Despite having no experience in the legal field, Erin Brockovich is relentless and ends up achieving one of the largest legal victories to date. The film highlights the ethical obligations and responsibilities corporations must obtain despite how powerful they may be. This demonstrated a prime example of how public companies must act in the interest of others and not just themselves and acknowledge how what they do affects others and be held accountable for their actions through corporate social responsibility. 

Over the weekend I made plans to visit Lake Garda on Friday and Portofino on Saturday and Sunday. However, early on Friday morning we were harshly reminded of the strike culture in public transportation as we arrived at the train station half asleep and were informed everything was canceled due to a strike. It was shocking to us that there had been no communication about this until about an hour after our train was supposed to depart. In the 90 degree heat we attempted to make the best of the situation and had brunch in an area we had never been and tanned in the Aparto courtyard with water bottles dumped on us to cool off. For dinner, a large group of us went to Osteria da Fortunata, a viral restaurant on Tik Tok, famous for an old woman making pasta by hand in the window. Although the restaurant catered to tourists, dinner was delicious and I would recommend it to others. On Saturday morning myself and six others began our girls trip to Portofino. With our fingers crossed, we headed to the train station and luckily boarded our train to Santa Margherita, a beach town outside of Portofino, known for where Milan locals escape on the weekends. The town exceeded all of my expectations as it was lined with quaint, colorful buildings on one side and radiant umbrellas along the blue water on the other. We immediately headed to the beach taking hundreds of pictures along the way of the perfectly detailed and manicured buildings and beaches with mountainous backdrops. We arrived at a beach club and headed to the water where we swam through the deep crystal blue water to a floating dock. We laid and jumped off the dock for hours and made friends with the local children doing the same. The afternoon on the dock had no documentation but I know pictures wouldn’t be able to do justice of how perfect it was. As the beach began to wind down we set off on our mile walk to our airbnb which ended up being majority up a winding driveway up into the mountain. However the sweaty hike was proved to be completely worth it with a deck looking out at a stunning view of the mountains and marina. After a girls night dinner we went to sleep and the next morning decided to stay in Santa Margherita instead of venturing to Portofino because of how perfect our day prior was.