Practicum with Internship:

As Mason and I near the end of our experience and Fondaziones Franco Albini, we hoped that we have contributed and provided value to our company. We had a networking event on Tuesday with all the other IES interns and their sponsors. I was able to meet Brandi, the other professor that teaches at IES. Our boss wasn’t able to come due to travel, but her assistant Arianna stopped by the event briefly. She is also the person that we talk to and work with at work. This event allowed me to know a little more about her and what her life as a student is like. She is preparing for a final exam coming up soon while also balancing the work. For the last week, we are tasked with making a sheet for the past year to keep track of revenue and expenses.

Academic course on CRS:

On Monday, I watched the film, Erin Brockovich. I thought this film was similar to A Civil Action. Both protagonists in each movie are tenacious lawyers who have a sense of justice for their local community. I was able to get a different perspective through Erin’s story as she fights for her beliefs. She is a single mom who has three kids and is the only source of income for the family. You could see the hardship and personal struggles that someone like Erin goes through. This is also the last week we have before our presentation on the research paper, so I’ve been busy doing research and finishing up our project. I’m excited to share the results with the class.

 

Culture Immersion:

It’s crazy to think that I’ve been in Italy for about a month now. I feel like I’m a local of Milan, but at the same time, I still have so much of the city to explore. I’ve enjoyed my time here and learned a lot about Italy itself. I still don’t get how people wear suits and pants during this scorching summer weather. Someone has told me that it can get up to 104 degrees here in the summer near August, so I commend the people of Milan for being so professional. Reflecting back, the North and South of Italy are very different. The people down South seemed to speak Italian, but a different dialect than Milan. I wish I had more time to visit other places like Sicily or Sardinia. Looking forward, I will be visiting my relatives in Amsterdam after the program, so I’m excited to immerse myself in a different country and culture.

 

 

 

 

For this week’s class, we had to read a brief case study regarding Apple and its suppliers. We looked into Foxconn and Pegatron, both had issues regarding corporate social responsibility. Foxconn was put under scrutiny when news broke out about employees committing suicide. Apple would then move on to Pegatron, only for the same issues to arise. Both of these companies had poor and unsafe working conditions for their workers. This is pretty common across the industry as well. You go foreign and find suppliers in other countries because wages are cheaper. However, the tragic truth is that these workers are not getting paid enough and always working excessive hours. We debated in class whether companies like Apple should follow different ethical standards in other countries. I would think that it’ll be difficult to enforce a universal code of ethics across multiple countries, so Apple should just comply with the local rules. I do think that some of the practices are wrong and unethical, but it should be the government that makes these changes instead of a corporation.

For my internship, I was finally able to have a meeting with my boss. It has been three weeks since Mason and I last talked to her. We have been working on this social media outreach presentation for the last two weeks. We were excited to present our research and findings. During the presentation, I was quite nervous but ultimately got the points across and my boss liked our presentation. She did have some critiques but the overall reaction was positive. After the meeting, we hoped to invite her to lunch, but she was busy. That is one thing I noticed about my boss: she is always busy. Apparently, she has other jobs like modeling/being an actress. She also travels a lot and is always working on projects with collaborators.

This past weekend, I visited Naples and immediately noticed some differences compared to Milan. The traffic in Naples is more chaotic and there are fewer business-dressed people. Taking a taxi here was quite a heart-racing experience. I’m pretty sure the drivers here don’t follow the light signals. The best way to cross the street was to just have confidence and assume that cars will stop for you. The streets here are more lively and decorated. You could see clothes being dried out by the windows. The soccer team in Naples also just won a soccer league championship, so a lot of the streets had banners with the team colors on them.

 

Internship:

This week we were invited to a kickoff event hosted at the Triennale Museum. This event serves to introduce the Casa Albini Project presented by Paola, the vice president of Fondaziones Franco Albini. Despite the whole presentation being in Italian and I could barely understand, I was able to get the main points that Paola was talking about. She introduced each of the three participants that will be working on the project. Each of them was from Politecnico Milano, a technical university here in Milan. Overall, the presentation was put together nicely. At the end of the presentation, Paola was delighted to see us. She will be stopping by the office next week for a presentation that Mason and I have been working on.

Class:

On Monday, we discussed the two statements released by the Business Roundtable, one in 1997 and the other in 2019. The question of the debate was whether the revised version was an empty rhetoric, or does will it bring change. The 2019 statement was a revision to address the stakeholders of the company and how they will change from focusing on the bottom line of shareholders. On Wednesday, we watched A Civil Action, a movie based on the real-life story of companies polluting the lake in Woburn, MA. I’m excited to hear about everyone’s thoughts and opinions on this movie next class period!

 

Culture Immersion:

On Saturday, I went to the archaeological city of Pompei. I didn’t know much about it except that a volcano erupted during the year 79 CE, destroying the city into ruins. What’s fascinating is how you can see how well the city was preserved. You can almost picture the different lives that the citizens of this city lived. There were streets of small houses for the ordinary, and then there were also enormous estates that housed wealthy families back then. Some of the houses had beautiful dining rooms, gardens, and courtyards. The whole time I felt like I was looking at a snapshot in history. When I see the casts of the ones who passed during this event, I can see what they were doing before their life was taken away. This place is definitely an underrated tourist attraction and I would highly recommend visiting Pompei.

Corporate Social Responsibility:

This week, we watched a documentary that compared corporations to psychopaths and compared similar traits between the two. At first, I found it odd to name a corporation as a psychopath. However, we learned in class that the definition of a corporation can be a legal entity/person under the law. They can be personified, meaning that they have the rights of an individual and the amendments apply to corporations. After viewing the film, I wouldn’t view corporations as psychopaths, but rather just greedy. Yes, they want to make money and don’t account for the safety or well-being of the public, but deeming them psychopaths seems too far to me. It feels unfair because then would everyone working for the corporation be psychopaths?

Internship:

Mason and I continue to conduct research on increasing social media marketing strategy and how to drive profits. We created a presentation slide to highlight the different aspects of our upcoming project and its marketability of it. The purpose of the slides was to pitch this idea to potential investors. We also created a plan for our outreach phase. First, we would find other social media influencers/companies whose values and work align with ours. We would outreach to them on social media via direct message or email.  Through this collaboration of showcasing each other’s work, we can gain a better online presence and become more attractive to sponsors who could fund us. Additionally, we hope to reach out to The Bank of Sardinia, where our project, Casa Albini, is located.

Culture Immersion:

I was really able to dive into the sports culture of Italyas I visited San Siro Stadium to watch a game between AC Milan and Verona. My immediate reaction was how frenetic and energetic the fans are here. You would never be able to see this type of excitement in the united states unless it was a championship round. This game was the last regular season game for AC Milan. This game was also the one where Zlatan Ibrahimovic announced his retirement. What was really amazing is that the public didn’t know this was going to happen. He announced his retirement at the end of the game. Although I don’t know much about soccer, I have heard of Zlatan and knew he was one of the best to play the game.

 

 

 

Cultural Immersion:

For this week we visited Verona, the City of Love. We had a walking tour through the city where our class was able to see Juliet’s balcony. We also visited the Arena, which translates to “sand” and learned more about the history and origins of the Arena. This weekend was Republic Day, so the city was extra busy and filled with tourists. The next day was Venice, the City of Water. Everywhere I went, I was able to see an amazing view of the canals that runs through the City. We stopped by the Rialto Bridge, the oldest bridge in Venice. We had a chance to try out a store known for its tiramisu, a popular Italian coffee-flavored dessert. Venice has been so far my favorite spot that I’ve traveled to.

Corporate Social Responsibility:

I really enjoyed this week’s class as we had debates about if it’s moral for banks to charge interest payments and a dilemma on vulnerable individuals getting scammed. The debates sparked engagements between the groups involved and each group challenged the other. I really love the free-flowing system of class and wish that I take more classes like this in the future. I continue to learn more as I read Wall Street Journal articles and listen to my classmate’s reports on their findings. I’m looking forward to future classes as we tackle the topics of corporations.

Internship:

For this week’s internship, a small group of people from a start-up architecture company visited our office. Mason and I, along with the group, were given a tour of the studio and learned more about the history of Franco Albini and his work. We learned about the various projects and ambitions he had. There were countless experiments and reeditions throughout his lifetime. His most famous work, the Luisa chair, took 15 years to become what it is now today. Albini was a man of constant innovation and functionality. He liked to keep his design simple, yet efficient. We continued to search for sponsors and composed a well-rounded list.

 

Practicum in Milan with an Italian Company

This week for my internship, I had my first day at the office with my partner Mason. We met with Arianna, who will oversee us during our internship. We had an in-person interview on Tuesday with Vice President Paola Albini. I was quite nervous during the interview but we established a good understanding of what we wanted to accomplish. Our first day of work was Friday. We learned about Casa Albini, an architecture and design project where participants are asked to come up with a modular and minimalistic style house while also keeping the surrounding of nature in mind. We were asked to research similar projects and see how these projects are funded and who funded them. Our goal is to connect with interested potential sponsors and ask them to provide resources and funding for this project. We were also asked to come up with ways to increase the company’s social media and marketing presence.

 

Academic course on corporate social responsibility

In class this week we watched the second part of the Adam Smith videos and continued to learn about corporations. We were also tasked to read Wall Street Journal articles and write down a summary and our reactions. This is a part of the class that I’m looking forward to because it gives me a chance to consistently read the WSJ. It’s something that I’ve been trying to do to improve my knowledge and understanding of the business world.  At the end of our first class, Professor Gupta went over the questionnaire that the class had answered previously. when Professor Gupta went through our answer results, it really showed the inconsistency of our opinions not only as a class but perhaps society as a whole. We also visited Circularity, a sustainability firm that focuses on creating a circular economy by recycling and reusing wasted materials.

Cultural immersion

My immediate reaction from my first few days in Milan was how different the transportation system was. Everyone gets to their work by public transportation and it felt so much more efficient and widespread than how it is in the United States. The weather here is also lovely and I enjoy the various sights here in Milan. I also got to see the Duomo for the first time and was amazed by the detail and intricacy. One of the reasons I love traveling is to try out foods from different cultures. Since Italy is known for its spaghetti, I went to Miscusi, a pasta chain, and ordered spaghetti carbonara. Although ordering at restaurants has been a challenge for me, I will continue to work on my Italian and hope to fully order a meal for myself.