(1) Academic Course on Corporate Social Responsibility

This week, while we didn’t have in person class with Professor Gupta, we watched a movie outside of class called Erin Brocovich. It was a good segue from the Civil Action movie, and led to some interesting discussions during group meals we had throughout the week. With this, most of us also continued working on our final papers and projects. My group got together a couple of times for coffee to talk about our topic, the gender pay gap, and discuss our research. 

(2) Practicum in Milan with an Italian Company

This week I also was off of work for most of the week because my company was attending a conference in North Carolina. While they were away, I began the competitive analysis for a new product, GAITLAB, and learned as much as I could about possible competitors. I found that BTS Bioengineering was fairly unique in the way they set up the entire GAITLAB system rather than selling separate devices as some of their competitors did. On Monday July 3 I have my last day at work, which is both sad and exciting because I will miss my company but I am also excited to share my experiences with my friends and family at home!

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

Last Monday, I attended the Coldplay concert with Maddy at San Siro stadium. It was amazing to be able to see the stadium and everyone in attendance while also getting to watch one of my favorite bands perform. Maddy and I had an amazing time, and it was a great last night as a teenager!

On Tuesday, I had my 20th birthday! Following the Coldplay concert, Maddy and I were on the tram home when the clock hit midnight and I started getting birthday wishes from the Lehigh in Milan students. Later on Tuesday, we had our networking event with IES which was a great experience to learn more about other work cultures within Milan. A group of the Lehigh students then went to one of our favorite restaurants afterwards and they surprised me with a birthday dessert.

Throughout the week, the whole Lehigh in Milan group was also planning a Tuscany trip for the weekend. By Friday, we were all ready to go and took a train to Florence before grabbing taxis to our villa we rented from Airbnb. The weekend was filled with lots of swimming, wine tasting, and family cooking, and I would not have traded the experience for the world. I am so incredibly grateful to have met an amazing group of my peers these past 6 weeks and this weekend was the best way to cap it off. 

As the program comes to a close, I want to thank Professor Gupta for everything he has done for us throughout the summer and for being an amazing professor during our time in Milan. I also want to thank all the other students who made this experience so unique and special, and I can’t wait for Bistro night when we get back to Bethlehem! (August 31st at 7:30, everyone mark your calendars)

(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!

(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!

Sara Menand’s Blog Post #3: Week Ending June 10, 2023

(1) Academic Course on Corporate Social Responsibility

In class on Monday, we watched a documentary focused on Corporations and their impact in the world as they are beginning to be seen as “people.” This led into a discussion about whether corporations deserve rights and privileges in the same way legal people do. With that, we discussed how some major corporations are already viewed as having opinions and emotions like a natural person, and that makes the corporate situation a difficult one for consumers and the government to navigate. Following that, we mainly discussed our Wall Street Journal entries on Wednesday, specifically articles that connected with the theme of corporations having rights. This discussion topic sparked many interesting conversations and leads us into the next section of class very well.

(2) Practicum in Milan with an Italian Company

This week in internship I focused heavily on learning more about the G-WALK sensor from a product management point of view. After transferring the Informational Powerpoint from the old template to a more modern layout— and learning about the product specs while doing so— I had a chance to play around with the device on Wednesday. Along with another research intern from Spain, we began using the G-Software, the G-WALK device, and even got to test out the cognitive tests. I had lots of fun learning more about the device and how to perform various tests, and now that I have the first device under my belt, I’m excited to continue learning more about each product within the BTS Bioengineering suite.

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

This past Sunday, a couple of us finally had the chance to stay in Milan and explore a bit while shopping around the Duomo. We had a lot of fun running in and out of stores throughout the day and got a meal right next to the Duomo for lunch. That night, a few of us also went to Pizza e Mozzarella, which we all agreed was by far the best pizza we have eaten yet on the trip.

After a week of class and internship, some of the cohort decided to go to the beach Friday during the day. The closest beach by train we found was Genoa, the coast town in Genova, Italy. While the weather wasn’t amazing, and we were all extremely tired after a long week, it was nice to have a relaxing day just laying in our lounge chairs. 

That night was an early night for us because on Saturday we had the Alpine Adventure trip planned by IES. Following a quick power nap on the bus after our 6:30am departure, we woke up to the most amazing few of the Italian Alpines outside our window. We arrived first at a little adventure park in the middle part of the mountains, where we were able to try out a ropes course all throughout the trees and looking right over the edge of Mont Blanc. The three hours of workout was so much fun and we all had a great time watching each other zippine through the trees. Following that and a quick lunch (with an amazing view from the Park’s lookout), we took the bus to a hiking trail to bring us to Lago D’Arpy, even higher up in altitude in the Alps. The views just got better and better through the mile and a half hike, and the Lehigh cohort had a great time chatting while we hiked. At the lake, a couple of Lehigh students jumped in despite the freezing temperatures of the glacier lake, and we were able to sit on some rocks and enjoy a once-in-a-lifetime view. After hiking back to the trail start and getting back on the bus, we all quickly fell asleep yet again for the ride home following a packed day— and preparing ourselves for another trip the next morning (which you’ll have to wait to read about next week!). 

Back in Milan, we had the amazing chance to watch the UEFA Champions League final while Inter Milan took on Manchester City. It was amazing to see the city bustling in black and blue jerseys, and Maddy, Ian, and I found a small pub on the Navigli to watch the game along with an Aperitivo. Despite Milan’s loss, it was really cool to see the football culture in the city and be able to watch right in the center of the city!

Sara Menand’s Blog Post #2: Week Ending June 3, 2023

(1) Academic Course on Corporate Social Responsibility

In class this week with professor Gupta, we started to discuss our Wall Street Journal posts. On Monday, we began by discussing a couple articles related to the DeSantis versus Disney battles in Florida, and we discussed the implications then on the Disney corporation and the Florida political environment. These articles are a great way for us to begin to learn more about current events, and they relate really well to our discussion about corporate social responsibility. 

With the WSJ posts, we also held a couple of debates surrounding some articles about the responsibilities of corporations to their customers. The first was about banks earning profit on mortgage rates. Then, we talked about an article talking about a bank’s innocence regarding a bank scam on one of its customers. Both of these articles and following debates worked well with our class topics and allowed us as students to begin getting used to the discussion style of the class and learn to look at both sides of an argument.

(2) Practicum in Milan with an Italian Company

At my internship this week, I was able to start training with BTS Bioengineering’s products in order to better understand my role in the product management part of the company. I was able to use the GWALK device and take a couple of tests to better understand how the technology and computer program worked for physical therapists and trainers. This training then led into my next task for the company, which is updating their many product information powerpoints to have a more modern look. It has been very informative to go through these powerpoints, and a great way to continue updating my skills within the Microsoft Office programs. Next week, I look forward to presenting my new slide formats and training on the NIRVANA technology as I continue working at BTS.

On top of this, we also were able to visit the Last Supper with IES. This field trip came as a part of our Italian curriculum, and we were all so excited to get one of the most coveted tickets in Milan. Seeing it in person was quite a gift!

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

After settling into Milan last week, we were able to really explore the city this week and dive more into the cultural aspects of living here. To kick off the week, we were able to go to all you can eat sushi with Professor Gupta on Monday. While this wasn’t the biggest embrace of Milano culture, it was a great way to bond with the cohort and spend some time together at a big group dinner in Milan– we even decided that Monday nights we should plan to always do a meal or Aperitivo together as a weekly tradition because of it! Speaking of Aperitivo, this was one of the main cultural rituals we began to partake in this week. Wednesday after class, a group of us headed to Bar Magenta for Aperitivo, and we got appetizers and drinks together after walking straight from class. Following that, we started participating at various Aperitivo events after learning more about how they were a big part of the worklife in Milan. On top of this, most of us began cooking our own meals this week rather than simply going out three times a day. Grocery shopping was quite the culture shock mainly because the brands we were familiar with weren’t totally present in the Italian supermarkets. It was fun to start cooking, though, and Maddy and I were able to have some fun dinners while making fresh pasta. 

Outside of exploring Milan, we also were able to do two trips this past weekend. Friday we spent most of the day in Verona with IES. It started off with a trip to a winery right outside of the main city, where we had a tour through the historic cellar followed by a wine tasting. The tasting was a great experience, and afterwards our host was generous enough to gift us an extra bottle while a group of us hung out to chat rather than walking around. After the winery, we had a walking tour through the city center of Verona with the most amazing tour guide, Cecelia. She led us all throughout the city, listing fun facts and history about almost every building and monument possible. On top of that, we got to venture inside of the Arena. While sitting in the “nosebleed” seats, we even got to sing our own song to experience the Arena’s magic (the obvious choice being “Love Story” by Taylor Swift). After a long day exploring the city, a couple of us grabbed some Aperol spritzes before heading back to the train station and going home. The next day, Saturday, we then planned another one of our own trips to Lugano, Switzerland. This was our first adventure outside of Italy and into surrounding Europe, and while we hadn’t planned an itinerary for most of the day, it was one of the best day trips I have ever had. After sprinting to catch our train (followed by some untimely train maintenance), the quick one hour train ride brought us to the center of Lugano where we grabbed a quick lunch. After that, the group split in half: one group continuing to walk around and explore and the rest of us taking a boat out on the lake. Jon and I both had the privilege of driving the boat around a bit on the lake during our rental hour, and it was an amazing experience to be floating around a Swiss lake. Afterwards, the group came together again for dinner before heading back to Milan. After having my first experience in Switzerland, I know I very much am looking forward to the next time I am able to travel to a Swiss city to continue to explore the country.

(1) Academic Course on Corporate Social Responsibility

In class this week, we continued our discussion from our inaugural classes on campus, finishing the set of educational videos about Adam Smith and discussing a bit about his ideas. With this, we also were able to visit Circularity on Friday, May 26. Circularity is an Italian company that aims to consult with other firms striving to create a more circular economy in Italy. A circular economy is based on the ideas of Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle, and Circularity helps companies find ways to reuse all of their materials that are used when manufacturing products and services. Our discussions of Adam Smith and the Circularity visit paired nicely to understand some European economic ideas and how they may compare with what we see in America, as well as just the basis for many economic decisions around the world. I look forward to discussion this upcoming week as we continue to talk more about different economies and begin to dive into our discussion of current events following our first Wall Street Journal entries. 

(2) Practicum in Milan with an Italian Company

This summer, I will be interning with BTS Bioengineering, a bioengineering company based in Garbagnate Milanese right outside of Milan. They aim to create technologies and systems to measure ergonomics in patients and athletes, allowing doctors, therapists, and trainers to personalize plans for their clients in order to improve their mobility. My first week has been focused on integrating me into the office and creating a plan for the summer, both by scheduling my “Smart Work” days and introducing the products. Because my commute is about an hour and fifteen minutes, I will be utilizing the Italian “Smart Work” capabilities by working from home some days each week. It was interesting to hear about the way they leave leniency for their employees because of the typically long commutes. Other than creating my in person/smart work schedule, I also was given educational materials to begin learning about the products and services that BTS Bioengineering offers customers. While reading through these brochures and letters, I also was asked to look over the English in each document. This led to some interesting discoveries such as the Italian use of the Oxford comma (or rather lack thereof) and other lingual nuances. Overall, the first week got me excited in continuing to work with my coworkers through the summer and continuing to learn more about working for an engineering company. 

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

Despite this being our first week in Italy, our 2023 cohort for Lehigh in Milan has not been shy about exploring the country. Throughout the week following our orientation with IES, we had many “family” dinners and trips, including the IES sponsored trip to Lago Maggiore on Saturday and a last minute trip to Cinque Terre Monterosso yesterday. 

After a week of exploring Milan, at Lago Maggiore we had the chance to visit some of the private islands and their Palazzos. The views were stunning, and the group enjoyed a day filled with walking along the shores of the lake and the hallways of the palaces. After dinner and a quick four hour rest that night, a group of us met downstairs in Aparto at 5:00am to catch a 6:00am train to Cinque Terre! We had bought tickets last minute on Friday afternoon, and we were looking forward to sleeping on the train and then relaxing on the Italian beaches of the Mediterranean. We couldn’t have planned a more perfect relaxing Sunday after a long week of exploring Milan, and the eight hour round trip was a small price to pay for an amazing trip to Monterosso.