Jennifer Beattie's Blog Post #5: June 13th, 2024 | 2024 Lehigh-in-Milan with Professor Gupta

In class we brought up the question of are there solutions that are not market-oriented? In my opinion I think that it is hard to come up with a solution that is not market-oriented. I feel like the goal of businesses and corporations is to identify the needs and desires of their consumers and create products that satisfy those needs. How can a company not be market oriented, who would they be working with / creating a product or service for, etc. Even when a business is working with another business or a government or anyone, those people are their consumers who are looking to be satisfied with their products and services so in my opinion, no there are not solutions that are not market-oriented.

In class we spent a lot of time on the cultural identity that makes up Italy and the cultural identity that makes up the United States. It was very interesting to see the things we talked about in Italy’s cultural identity. One thing that stood out to me the most was how you rarely see the Italian Flag when walking around outside. I feel like back home in America, there are American flags and flagpoles outside of many schools and businesses everywhere. I liked when we discussed what makes up our cultural identity with the images on the screen of the college pride. I feel like in the United States, getting into college is so important and defines a lot about who you are making up a large part of your identity. Seeing that that is not the case here was very interesting to learn about.

This week, we kept working on our project waiting on a reply from SIGEP to move ahead with emailing people to reach out to. Our other interns who work in the afternoon started calling people to market SIGEP, but once we are approved to send out emails, Victoria and I will be following up to their calls with emails containing more details and information. Also this week, we had lunch at our boss’s house where he cooked us ravioli and we sat in his kitchen talking for over an hour. It was so interesting to see the inside of an apartment that a family lives in and how it differs from apartments back home. This apartment was a lot bigger than I had imagined and it was beautiful.

Last weekend my friends and I traveled to Florence. We navigated taking the train and renting an AirBnb for all of our group. We had a great time enjoying great food including the famous Florentine Steak which I would honestly say was the best steak I have ever had. We shopped a lot for leather stuff in their leather markets as well because they are known for their leather products. It was so nice to see the differences between Florence and Milan because although Florence is more on the tourist side, I enjoyed it because it felt very different. In my opinion, Milan is very metropolitan with the hustle and bustle of the city, similar to New York in that way. But Florence was completely different, it had smaller streets and more colorful buildings and it was beautiful. I went to the oldest pharmacy in the world called The Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella. They are known for their perfumes and herbal essencences and it was in a beautiful building. We also went to the Duomo there and it was overall a great trip!