In our Corporate Social Responsibility class on Monday, we discussed Alexandra’s article on New York and Seattle’s minimum wage laws for food delivery workers. The article highlights the complexities of raising the minimum wage, noting that it can sometimes have unintended consequences. In this case, the wage increase has made food delivery apps significantly more expensive, leading to a dramatic decline in business and causing drivers to seek other employment. We also discussed Apple’s moral and legal responsibilities concerning their suppliers’ labor conditions. While I believe Apple could do more, I had not considered all the obstacles to improving labor conditions in offshore locations. On Wednesday, in class, we watched the movie Civil Action, to compare and contrast with Erin Brockovich, which we watched individually. I really enjoyed watching Erin Brockovich and was excited to learn it was based on a true story.

Last Thursday, we attended a networking event at the Grand Visconti Palace Hotel instead of our usual Tuesday internship seminar. The evening began with a Bingo activity to facilitate conversations between all of the students and employers. Afterward, we socialized in the hotel’s garden, enjoying food, desserts, and wine. The Crème Brûlée they had was a highlight for me.  In our class on Tuesday this week, we talked about what we have learned about our workplace environments. It was hard for me to engage in this discussion since I am mostly remote, and my workplace is usually a café. Later, we worked on updating our resumes to include our internship experiences and I am glad we got class time to do this.

For my internship this week, I ended up continuing to manually upload data after my boss suggested uploading CSV files to the database through MySQL Workbench instead of writing the SQL queries. I ended up making some changes to my original UML diagram to store the data more efficiently. I also worked with Mahan to create more tables in preparation for future microplastic data that will be collected and stored. On Wednesday, I had a call with my boss, so I spent that morning preparing clarifying questions about possible errors in the data, confusion I had regarding inconsistencies, and how to remedy them. I am hoping that my database will make the data easier to visualize and understand

My friend Kate and I traveled to Interlaken, Switzerland, on Friday morning. After arriving at our hostel, we decided to hike Harder Kulm. The hike, with a 2,400-foot elevation gain over 2.77 miles, took us 30 minutes less than the estimated time, which we were excited about. I loved the hike, and the panoramic view at the top was breathtaking. After our descent, we swam in a nearby lake with cool, blue water surrounded by mountains. On Saturday morning, we went skydiving. We were picked up at the train station and taken to the drop zone. We were on the third flight, and watching the first two eased my nerves. I got to meet my instructor, Robbin, who was from Australia, and we climbed on the little plane. The flight was 15 minutes and the views of the mountains were incredible the whole way. Since Kate and I boarded last, we were the first to jump. The 45-second free fall felt much longer, and once the parachute opened, Robbin let me steer and do some circles. We had a smooth landing, and I immediately wanted to do it again. Leading up to the day, I was a little scared, but as soon as we got on the plane, calmness and excitement took over. It was the coolest experience I’ve ever had, and I hope it won’t be my last time skydiving.