We have yet to attend a class for Professor Gupta’s Corporate Social Responsibility course, but we have completed our first Wall Street Journal assignment. I analyzed an article discussing incentives for companies to develop clearer and more detailed sustainability information to attract investor funds. I enjoyed reading and reflecting on this article, but I recognize that I need to improve my understanding of the background of the articles I select. I hope that as I continue working on the WSJ assignments, I will develop the ability to internally analyze articles similar to how Professor Gupta broke down the article in one of our classes at Lehigh. Formulating better questions and internal dialogue will guide my research and help me understand each topic more deeply.
Tuesday night, my internship sponsor invited our group to a doctoral presentation on “A Bottom-Up Modeling Chain to Evaluate the Impact of Urban Road Transport Policies on Air Quality and Human Health” at Politecnico di Milano. We were excused from the Internship Seminar to attend this event. After navigating some challenges with public transportation, we joined a class of Italian students to hear Andrea Piccoli, a PhD candidate in Environmental Engineering, present his research on Milan’s traffic emissions. Although I did not completely understand all of the graphs shown, the presentation was interesting. Afterwards, the professor, who taught the class we visited, mentioned that Milan is one of the most polluted cities in Europe. This was new information to me.
This past Thursday, we did a rush hour test to practice commuting to work. Although my internship will be mostly remote, my group visited the Politecnico di Milano building where we will occasionally attend presentations or seminars. This practice was helpful, although I still need to get the commute down. On Monday, Clare, Mahan, and I met with our employer, Domenico Vito, a Climate Consultant and Environment and Health Data Analyst for Metabolism of Cities. He detailed the projects we will be working on and the motivations behind them. The project I will be most involved in is called Trash2Treasure, which aims to collect data about marine trash to better manage waste and develop potential policies or solutions to mitigate future waste on beaches. Learning more about the projects and my specific tasks made me more excited to start working. In a very summarized explanation, my job is to expedite and simplify the process of uploading collected data to a database. This internship aligns well with the skills I have developed in my computer science and business classes at Lehigh and I am interested in expanding my knowledge about database management in a real-world context.
This first week has flown by, but it also feels much longer due to the eventful days. On Friday, after our IES sessions, some friends and I walked through the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II shopping center, visiting all the designer stores. Then we climbed to the top of the Duomo, before walking around the inside and the basement. The statue of Saint Bartholomew caught my eye with its detail and somewhat unsettling appearance. Afterward, we went to Terrazza Aperol and I enjoyed a caprese salad with a view of the Duomo. On Saturday I attended the IES group trip to Lake Maggiore. I didn’t do any research about Lake Maggiore so I didn’t have any expectations but it was better than I could have imagined. The weather was perfect and all the islands were beautiful. We visited Isola Madre, Isola dei Pescatori, and Isola Bella by boat. The next day, I spent some time at a huge Antique market in Navigli with 400 tables along the canal. There was a ton of jewelry, clothes, purses, paintings, books, and furniture. I ended up buying a little silver San Valentino coin charm. This week has been great and I am eagerly looking forward to the rest of my time in Milan.
