Allison Dubler Blog Post #2: Week Ending May 26, 2024 | 2024 Lehigh-in-Milan with Professor Gupta

This week, our class will not meet for Professor Gupta’’s academic course on Corporate Social Responsibility. However, myself and the rest of my classmates had to complete a weekly assignment for this course. I felt that by completing our Wall Street Journal Entry assignment, my classmates and I got a taste of what Professor Gupta’s course will look like over the coming weeks. Each student had to select a unique article off of the Wall Street Journal – one that resonated with Corporate Governance, Corporate Social Responsibility, or Corporate Ethics. After analyzing the article that we chose and posting our analysis/summary onto Course Site, we all replied to at least one other student’s post with some form of reaction. The article that I chose was called “Prices at the Pump Are Dropping Just in Time for Memorial Day Weekend.” My main analysis point consisted of the idea that lowered gasoline prices encourages higher consumption of gas and therefore greater emissions of fossil fuels, even though in this day and age it is crucial to be mindful of the negative impacts that our decisions will have on the environment. A classmate of mine, Abi, responded to my post on Course Site. She agreed with the points that I proposed, and she added that a large cause of the higher consumption of gasoline by Americans is poor urban development and planning choices. I felt that this assignment has prepared me for what to expect in Professor Gupta’s CSR class, and I am excited to hear further opinions from my classmates and have civil debates with them as the weeks go on.

Today was our first Internship Seminar with Professors Swain and Gupta. Professor Swain had us all share our first impressions in the workplace, and it was comforting to know that a lot of my classmates and I had similar experiences. For example, at my internship as well as at some of my classmates’, our colleagues spend around the first half hour or so of work drinking coffee and chatting. Professor Swain also shared with us some tips from the students in the same program in previous years. Some of these tips included staying flexible, being proactive, asking a lot of questions and for feedback, as well as to try and always accept invitations for coffee or lunch breaks. Before class, we read about different cultural construct extremes that one falls in between when it comes to the workplace. We then discussed these cultural orientations in class and where we might fall on these spectrums. For example, one of these spectrums was organization: “schedule” vs. “flow”. I consider myself to lean more left on this scale, as I prefer to map out my days in advance and remain prepared. However, some friends of mine lean more towards the “flow” side of the spectrum, where they can push things back, be late, or reschedule without a problem. It was interesting to hear how these cultural orientations apply to a typical work environment. I am interested to learn more about these different cultural constructs in the workplace.

I have completed two half days at my internship so far. Although today is only Tuesday and I have had little experience working so far, I feel that I will enjoy my summer working at Goodpoint. Goodpoint is a consulting firm that is also a certified B Corporation that provides aid to not-for-profit companies. Yesterday, my first day at Goodpoint, I helped a colleague, Camilla, research articles that Goodpoint will publish on their website this month. This “newsletter” has many different informative news articles surrounding Corporate Social Responsibility, Environmental Social Governance (ESG), as well as other business-sustainability news. I felt that this task helped me highlight researching skills that I may have learned so far at Lehigh, and I also enjoyed the articles that I was reading – I found them to be very interesting being a business student. Today, I joined in on a meeting where I was briefed on the tasks that I should attempt to complete over the next week or so. My colleagues Marco, Laura, and Francesca explained to me that they would like me to check over a list of 50 US foundations and ensure that the information about each foundation is still true, as this list was last checked sometime last year. For example, I had to double check that The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation still does not provide unsolicited grants, as well as that they still aid foreign (specifically Italian) companies. Our next meeting to discuss my progress will be on Thursday.

Although this was only my first week here in Milan, it is safe to say that I have already experienced quite a bit of Social and Cultural immersion in this short period of time. The trip through IES to Lake Maggiore was incredible. We went this past Saturday and had an incredible time. The group was taken to three islands by boat, all of which were incredibly beautiful. The next day, myself and a few others went to a vintage flea market in Milano. We found unique vintage pieces and had an amazing day just walking around – the beautiful weather definitely helped with that. Additionally, throughout this past week, my friends and I have walked around the Duomo area, and we have already found spots that we thoroughly enjoyed. For example, a gelato place right in the center of the Duomo area had incredible Nutella gelato where we got to see the staff mixing it themselves. Another interesting experience I had in the Duomo area was when random men grabbed my hand and put bird seed in it so that many pigeons flew onto me. After being attacked by pigeons and having more bird seed continuously and forcefully put into my hand, I was asked to pay these men for the experience… I would recommend staying away from this area. However, I made light of the situation and now find it funny (although I am never going near a pigeon again).