Sophie Lin's Blog #8: July 4th, 2024 | 2024 Lehigh-in-Milan with Professor Gupta

(1) Academic Enrichment via Professor Gupta’s Corporate Social Responsibility course

In this week’s Corporate Social Responsibility course we discussed the Apple case study on monday and branched to similar topics with our groups. We also talked through two WSJ’s and connected the topic of disclosing worker pay and the increase of delivery fees. For Wednesday’s class we watched Erin Brockovich and answered questions. This movie was so interesting to see the balance between work and family. The movie highlights the company PG&E as they have made the unethical decision to not address the fact that they have polluted the communities water. As they did not take responsibility for their actions, Erin is driven to advocate for the community members. As she takes on this responsibility, we see her struggle with being a single mother as well. She takes an unconventional approach to her job and it is so interesting to see how this benefited her but also shaped her reputation.

(2) Internship Seminar

This week in the internship seminar we discussed how our time in Milan has shaped how we imagine our future. I think for me specifically I have found that working from home is not for me. Maybe a hybrid situation could be nice but in general I would rather be interacting with people, getting to know them, and be able to ask questions in person. Off of that, I value both individual and group work from time to time. I enjoyed collaborating with coworkers but it could get to a point where I wanted to do my own thing, on my own timeline. When going through some of our big takeaways, I said mine was going with the flow. Italians are for sure never on time and so I had to adapt to my environment and figure things out as they go.

(3) Actual Internship

This week in my internship, we dived deeper into some ideas that we had proposed. This included expanding partnerships, donations, engagement and then improving the website. Our first presentation was brief when talking about implementing things into the program so this week we got more specific in what we thought they could do better. We organized things in terms of the most achievable short term and long term. We also interacted with local shops to strengthen partnerships and collect food surplus for the community. Additionally, as it got warmer, we of course took some of our coffee breaks. As I have been working there for about 5 weeks now, it has been nice to get to know my coworkers in a different way. I am very excited for the upcoming week as we have planned an aperitivo for our goodbye.

(4) Cultural Immersion through group and personal travels

This past weekend I traveled to Florence with my mom. We started off the trip with lots of shopping in local shops and markets. The next day we went to Sienna where we were able to see the first ever bank in the world (Banca Monte dei Paschi) and the Palio race. The Palio race was so exciting and great to see the pride each city has. After this we went to a winery where we got to try 12 different wines along with a fabulous 3 course meal. The next day we got a tour of the Uffizi and saw great historical art. We ended the trip coming back to Milan where I got to show my mom around and went to a nice dinner.