Kamara St. Paul's Blog Post #8: July 4th, 2024 | 2024 Lehigh-in-Milan with Professor Gupta

In Professor Gupta’s Corporate Social Responsibility class this week, we talked about tech companies and their relation to unethical labor practices. Apple was the focus of our conversation, as we had read a case study centered around the company to prepare for class. We discussed how Apple was the target of several exposés even though many tech companies rely on the same type of exploitation. We also talked about why news outlets like BBC might be targeting the company. We then discussed whether the suppliers’ actions were something that needed to be controlled by the companies contracting them.

This week in our internship seminar class, we discussed our thoughts on last week’s networking event as well as any updates or things we’ve noticed since our last class. We identified some things that we learned in class that helped us to navigate our workplace better as well as Italy in general. We also had a resume workshop that zeroed in on how we could improve our resume and add in our internship experience in Milan. We got some very useful tips regarding formatting and how to really make your writing represent you and your experiences better. The last thing we did in class was watch a video about how to most effectively and efficiently speak in public. There were many tactics demonstrated such as eye contact, pausing instead of using like or so and having an open face.

At my internship, it was more of an opportunity to get to know my coworkers as we wrap up our experience in Milan. Our project supervisor is on holiday for the entire week and didn’t leave us any new tasks to complete. We’ve just been fine tuning what we’ve done on previous work days so that when she gets back and it’s time to present what we’ve done over the past two weeks, it will be as presentable as possible. We have been trying to finalize the optimism events that are going to take place during our final week of working and come up with a final schedule for that. We have also finalized the newsletter for this month, implementing some of our ideas and graphics.

On Saturday morning, my family arrived in Milan. I met them at Milano Centrale and guided them through traveling on the metro and trams as well as purchasing their 3 day passes. On Saturday, I took them to the Duomo, the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II and the Starbucks Roastery. After that, we got lunch and I brought them to their hotel. For dinner we went to this delicious pizza place and in the morning we flew to Rome. We saw the Colosseum and the Vatican and just walked around the city. On Monday, we did a cooking class that was really fun and taught us some really useful recipes. The food that we made was delicious, and the menu included traditional bruschetta, lasagna and tiramisu. We even made the pasta from scratch which was surprisingly easier than I expected.