Kamara St. Paul's Blog Post #6: Week Ending June 20, 2024 | 2024 Lehigh-in-Milan with Professor Gupta

In Professor Gupta’s Corporate Social Responsibility class this week, we watched the rest of the documentary “The Corporation” and discussed a few thoughts that arose from watching it. I think that my group and I had a very useful and eye opening discussion regarding the negative externalities that companies produce and who’s responsible for keeping these companies in power. We debated just how many individual rights corporations should have since they don’t face the same consequences as actual individuals. We also debated about the magnitude of the punishments that are given to corporations and if it’s sufficient. On our second day of class this week, we had a forma debate regarding the topic “There is no such a thing as corporate social responsibility because the only goal of a public company is to maximize its profits for the sole benefit of its shareholders.” My classmates presented reasonable arguments for both sides, but in my opinion, I think that CSR and maximizing shareholder value can coexist. One does not have to dictate the other.

In our internship seminar class today, we discussed high and low context cultures and things that we’ve noticed about Italians and their communication that might not be obvious to tourists. We noticed how important greetings were to many Italians and how expressive they are as well as trusting once you’ve established a relationship with them. We also talked about whether our workplaces were more egalitarian or hierarchical and how we could identify whether or not they were. Some things we talked about were the structure of our workplaces, such as how offices are set up and how certain employees might act around their boss. Lastly, we talked about what we thought made a good boss and how the expectations of a good boss might differ from culture to culture. Then we switched gears in class to talk about our group project, which I’m actually very excited to get started on. My group chose a really interesting question (no spoilers) that I think will be a good way for us to understand Italians who might be in the minority.

At my internship this week, we worked on creating graphics for a monthly newsletter that we will be sending out to the members of the office. We also created scripts for about the next 12 months for them to paste into the different sections that we have for the newsletter, to make things simple, especially after we’re gone. We planned some activities to include in a newcomer’s event that our supervisor is leading and we also created an invitation for that meeting. We did the same thing for an intern meeting that she’ll be hosting in order to allow students to practice their presentation skills. We planned out an initiative that’s common among LG offices worldwide which is Optimism Week, inspired by LG’s Optimism Campaign. We’re looking for a way to brighten up the days of the staff that work here, especially after busy season, by celebrating them and reminding them of the ways that they can find optimism in the workplace. Today we presented what we had come up with so far for week 4 and got feedback from our supervisor regarding what to fix.

Over the weekend, I spent some time relaxing from Thursday- Friday. I just stayed in and caught up on work which was nice and also caught up with my family. On Saturday, I traveled to Cinque Terre for the day which was about a 3 hour train ride South of Milan. It was really beautiful. The few stops in the town prior to and after the Monterosso stop that we got off of were all beach towns and were such a pleasant view. Once we got off the train, it was only about 9:30, so we walked around while we waited for it to get warmer outside. In the town that we were in, there were two sides of the beach and we settled in on the calmer and quieter side. Before that, we stopped for breakfast, getting pancakes, eggs and fruit at this little cafe with outdoor seating. We then walked around the town scouting where we’d go for lunch and just exploring the beauty of it. Once we’d figured out lunch, we went straight to the beach and rented an umbrella and chairs. We were super tired after our train so we tanned and napped for a few hours or so and then got lunch. We ate at this nice restaurant and got this delicious salmon ravioli. It was actually a pretty quick meal, so after, we went back to the beach and I went for a swim. The water was perfectly tempered and it was a very enjoyable experience.