(1) Academic Course on Corporate Social Responsibility
In class on Monday, we began by discussing our Wall Street Journal entries before jumping right into a lively debate involving the 2019 Business Round Table Statement, arguing for or against a statement concerning the rhetoric of the agreement. My group got to be a part of the primary debate and we argued that the 2019 update was an empty promise with lackluster evidence as to what the corporations were promising their stakeholders and customers. This was one of our most lively discussions so far and I felt as though most of the class was able to share their ideas on the matter in a way that allowed us all to see the rhetoric from different perspectives. On Wednesday, we watched the movie Civil Action. This movie follows lawyer Jan Schlichtmann as he takes on a case involving polluted water and children with cancer in Massachusetts, helping the children’s families sue the corporations W.R. Grace and Company and Beatrice Foods Company. I really enjoyed the movie from both a plot and a corporation ethics perspective. It showed how corporations balance an ethical dilemma of making money and sharing benefits with their stockholders versus the responsibility they have to their customers and the world in general. I think the discussion in class next Monday will bring some great new insights from my peers and I also look forward to the next movie we are watching, Erin Brockovich.
(2) Practicum in Milan with an Italian Company
At internship this week, I was trained on and got to test out the second major product that BTS Bioengineering produces: NIRVANA. This product still assesses the motion of a patient, but it also tests the cognitive ability of patients in order to find any correlations between neurological and physical injuries. I enjoyed playing around with NIRVANA and pretending I was like a children’s hospital patient, the planned group of users NIRVANA will be marketed towards because of its ability to feel more like a game than a medical test. Following this initial training, I did the same reactions and write-up that I did for the G-WALK sensor while also updating the PoewrPoint to be more modern and use “American” English in order to help the product be marketed in America. Next week, I will also be taking a work trip up North to see the NIRVANA system used in a hospital setting at a hospital near Lake Como!
(3) Social and Cultural Immersion through Travels in Italy and Europe
At the beginning of this week, I explored Venice with a group of Lehigh students. We had a minor issue with our train arriving in Venice, but after a quick decision to jump on a bus, we made it to the main station in the city. We didn’t make plans ahead of time for our Sunday in Venice, so we mainly just walked around to look at the small shops and cafes, and of course, take lots and lots of pictures of the canals. It was definitely the most “touristy” city we’ve traveled to so far, but as a group, we were able to immerse ourselves into the town a bit. For dinner, we found a smaller local seafood restaurant and ordered some surprise dishes, most of which came out of the kitchen staring at us!
During the week, we focused mostly on our classes and internships as our job responsibilities started to pick up. We still did a big cohort dinner on Monday with Professor Gupta, and on Wednesday after class a group of us walked home and all around Navigli.
At the end of the week on Friday afternoon, Maddy, Kat, Sam, Lili and I left for Barcelona to visit some friends! Neave and Sachi met us there after flying earlier in the day, and Sam and I met up with friends from home. Our first dinner Friday night was one of the best meals yet at a little Tapas place about a ten-minute walk from our Airbnb. The next day we explored Milan a bit, shopping around the central part of the city and looking at some of the famous architecture, specifically by Gaudi. That afternoon, Kat, Maddy, and I also got tickets to go inside Sagrada Familia which is the main church in the city and was designed by Gaudi. That night we met up with some of the Lehigh in Barcelona group to go out to a bar and eventually the club Pacha! Sunday we had a relaxing day to catch up on some much-needed rest while boating around the Mediterranean in a catamaran tour. We took a quick swim and had a drink on the boat before heading back to the shore for dinner. That night I got to hang out more with my friend from home, meeting some of her friends from her study abroad program in Barcelona. Kat, Maddy, and I even sang karaoke that night! Being our first trip to sleepover somewhere that wasn’t Milan, we had a great time exploring Milan and can’t wait for whatever we plan for next weekend!
