Victoria Hawk's Blog Post #9: July 11th, 2024 | 2024 Lehigh-in-Milan with Professor Gupta

For the last week of class, we continued our normal routine of starting class with a WSJ presentation, and people sharing their views and thoughts on the story presented. Then we did things differently in class this week, and shared our final presentation. Each group got 20 minutes to share a brief explanation of their research topic and we got to learn about what they have been working out throughout this summer term. After the presentations, we got the chance to ask questions on areas we were confused about or wanted to hear more about. Even though we had some technical difficulties, all the groups got to present and it was very interesting learning about what everyone researched.

In the internship seminar this week we all worked on our group presentation on the topic of our choice, with options that we could choose from, and got the chance to present them to the class. My group presented on Waste Management in Italy as we were very interested in it as it has been a hard transition coming from the US used to our waste management regulations. They are very strict and legit and Italian and it has definitely taken me some time to adjust and I don’t even think I fully have. In my group, I was responsible for interviewing an Italian and hearing their thoughts on waste management, and that was extremely informative and educational hearing their thoughts and opinions on it.

In my internship this week we are back in person for my last week. Last week both of my bosses were traveling so they had me and Jen work remotely. As much as I enjoyed working remotely, it was great to be back in the office and getting to see everyone. As soon as we got back to the office, we got straight into what the game plan is for the week. We started organizing excel files and finding people on linkedin that fit all the requirements that our boss sent Jen and I. We then continued reaching out to people seeing if they are interested in Sigep, and continue to stay in contact with the people that are interested. I have really enjoyed this internship and felt as though I have learned and grown a lot. I hope to stay in touch with everyone I have met at my internship and people at IES!

This weekend was my last weekend in Italy and I traveled to Split Croatia with a big group! This was my first trip getting on a plane and planning flights my whole time here. That was a little nerve racking as if we have only traveled on trains, and if we missed our train or if our train got canceled/ delayed, we could catch the next one which isn’t the case for flights. Luckily, everything went smoothly and we made our flight to and from the Split. In Split, we went to a beach club one day and then went on a boat tour the next day. Split was very different from any place I’ve been but the beach was so relaxing and calming. It was very interesting as the water in Split is extremely salty and something I wasn’t expecting. Besides that, that boat was such a fun experience and great way to see Croatia and one of my favorite things I’ve done in my time here.