Professor Gupta’s CSR Course

This week in Professor Gupta’s corporate social responsibility course we are in the final week and are wrapping up! This week we are presenting our group projects and although we didn’t get through very many yesterday I thought it was really interesting. I am supposed to present tomorrow and although I am nervous I am looking forward to presenting my findings to my peers. Myself and my group members have worked very hard on this and I am proud of the presentation we have made. I also completed my last Wall Street Journal article assignment and was prompted to reflect on what we thought of the assignment and I realized how much I have enjoyed becoming a frequent reader of the news. 

 

Professor Swain’s Internship Seminar

In Professor Swain’s Internship Seminar course we also continued with some wrap up. Myself and my group members presented on the implications of the made in Italy label and I focused on nationalism versus regionalism in food. I got to do a lot of research and was able to apply concepts we have learned in class to better present my findings to my peers. We also had a brief discussion with Professor Gupta about interviewing skills and I got to practice interview questions with Allie. Although I thought this exercise might be kind of silly at first I really actually enjoyed practicing some interview skills with the experience at my internship. I also finished up my final paper today and reflected on my experience at my internship and my overall experience in Milan which made me realize how much I have learned since getting here. 

 

Internship Experience

This week at Turbo Crowd I don’t really have much to report. I presented my survey and made some changes and will be sending it out later in the week. Our regular meeting was canceled at the last minute and rescheduled to Thursday this past week and we didn’t really get to do much because our boss has been clearly busy with other matters. I am excited to be done with this process of survey design and to see the results. Because this is the last week I assume we will be doing something in our meeting tomorrow to wrap it all up. 

 

Travels in and around Milan

This past weekend was our last full weekend here, and my friends and I decided to stay in Milan for the weekend and explore all of the places that we haven’t gotten to see yet because we have been doing so much traveling on the weekends. It was so much fun and so relaxing. We went to vintage markets at the canals that we had never gotten to because we had never spent a Saturday in Milan and I absolutely loved them even though I didn’t buy anything. Later that day we went to a food street market and walked around and then made an hour walking journey to a restaurant we all wanted to try. On that walk we ended up going through Parco Semprione which was a part of Milan that I have always wanted to see and it did not disappoint. It was so calm and had so much greenery and for a moment I almost forgot I was in a city. I’m really sad that this was our last full weekend here and spending time in Milan made me realize how much I am going to miss it, I really do love it here. 

1) Academic Enrichment via Professor Gupta’s Corporate Social Responsibility course
This week in Professor Gupta’s corporate social responsibility class we continued with the same routine as always with the discussion of Wall Street Journal articles, homework case studies and debates on them, and then later a video. For the Wall Street Journal I was particularly interested in Alexandra’s article about the current state of wages for Doordash drivers. It made me realize how expensive these services have gotten and that it is almost a feedback loop where Doordash cannot afford to pay their workers so they add on more fees and then their drivers make less money. We also conducted a group discussion about the Apple case studies and had the opportunity to dig into corporate ethics and how to adjust general ethical standards country by country. We now have to focus on our final papers and presentations to wrap up the course which should be a lot of work but I am excited to work with my group and get it done.

2) Academic Enrichment via Gupta/Swain Internship Seminar
This week in Professor Swain and Professor Gupta’s internship seminar we discussed our post event impressions of the networking event. I thought this was a fun and open environment to find out more about my peers’ internships and tell them about my own. Because my boss was not there I could take my own direction with who I wanted to talk to. We also discussed key tips to understanding differences in working environments. Me and my group discussed how different relationships work in different workplaces, and how we need to be flexible. We also got to discuss our intrinsic motivation activities, which I thought was a really interesting way to evaluate what I have taken away from my internship and my experiences in Milan. I realized that in the future I will definitely be seeking in person job and internship opportunities because I really am not motivated at all by working online.

(3) Actual Internship
This week we switched things up at TurboCrowd and moved on to creating the State of Crowdfunding annual survey to prepare a report. This was much more fun than just scraping data and I got to actually be creative with the way I was making the survey and how I was asking the questions to get the most efficient answers. I am happy with the progress I am making and I feel like I have gotten into more of a rhythm of things with the pattern of when I do work. We also got to attend an in person event this last week! We got to attend the launch of Turbo Crowds partnership with Publicis group, the multinational advertising agency. I could not hear much of the event because it was in Italian, but it was a really cool experience. We also got to interact with some of our coworkers who live far away in Naples and build better relationships with the coworkers that we have already met. Overall, I am excited to be in the final stretch of this internship progress and I feel like I have been learning a lot.

(4) Cultural Immersion through group and personal travels
This past weekend myself and some friends boarded the train early on Friday morning and headed to Florence! It was so much fun to explore such a beautiful, historic city, and I really appreciated how walkable it was. We got to see the Duomo in Florence from a cool viewpoint in a local library which was one of the most stunning buildings I’ve ever seen. All of Friday we explored and walked around with little direction and it was actually really fun to just dip into whatever store or building we thought looked cool. That night, we went out to dinner at Trattoria Gobi and enjoyed a delicious meal of Florentine steaks and pasta. The line was super long but it was absolutely worth the wait and we all left so full but so content with the meal we had just had. The next day we woke up and it was scorching 99 degrees outside but we were surprised with the beginning of the Tour De France! My whole family is super into road and mountain biking so this was such an incredible sight to see. This next week I won’t be going on any sort of trip and I am planning to explore Milan “the tourist way.”

(1) Professor Gupta’s academic course on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
This week in Professor Gupta’s academic course on corporate social responsibility we discussed two different Wall Street Journal Articles. The first article was about DEI initiatives in hiring and the ethics of an increased propensity to hire those that identify as minorities. PersonallyI believe that these programs are helpful and provide opportunities to those who do not have them, but some disagree. Additionally, we discussed Jen’s article about Eli Lilly’s new weight loss drug and evaluated whether they should be widely distributed or not. Additionally, Jen brought up a point that these drugs were not meant to be so widely produced and that these drugs are being used incorrectly for weight loss instead of diabetes treatment. Both of these articles inspired compelling class conversations and I thought it was interesting to hear other people’s perspectives.

(2) Professors Swain and Gupta’s Internship Seminar
This week, we do not have a meeting for Professor Swain and Gupta’s internship seminar, because we are preparing for the all IES networking event later this week. For our weekly journal assignment, we were encouraged to think about how power, influence, and decision making operate at our workplace and what a good boss or leader looks like to us. I realized how much I have a tendency to default to superiors in a workplace and how I do expect my boss to in a way have all the answers. Additionally, I feel like this thinking comes from the fact that I tend to put a lot of distance between myself and my seniors, which is another point that was brought up in the prompt.

(3) a Practicum in Milan with an Italian Company
This week at Turbo Crowd Cooper and I are working on finishing up the first phase of our assignment so that we can begin to make our state of crowdfunding final report. We are continuing on with the same things we have been doing, but the work is ramping up slightly. Later this week, I am looking forward to going to two different events on Thursday. Earlier in the evening, Cooper and I will be attending an event with our whole team that is with a media company that Turbo Crowd is working with. I am looking forward to attending this event with the whole company to discuss our projects. Later that night we are also going to the IES networking event which will be a fun opportunity to share my experiences with my peers.

(4) Social and Cultural immersion through travels in Italy and Europe
This weekend, myself and some friends boarded a plane and traveled to Barcelona, Spain! I absolutely loved this city and I was so impressed by its beautiful architecture and nicely shaded streets when we explored. Even though it was 80 degrees it still felt cool and shady, it was great to see pedestrian focused urban planning at work. This was especially noticed when we explored all of the vintage stores that Barcelona has to offer. We walked 8 miles going from place to place and it was so fun. One of my favorite parts of the trip was the food we ate. We had tapas both nights and it was such a fun experience to get to try all sorts of little plates and share them with friends. The next day we had so much fun on a boat tour of Barcelona and also tried some smoothies from a place that Allie found online and they were absolutely amazing. I loved Barcelona and I would absolutely return to the city at some point in the future if given the chance.

(1) Professor Gupta’s academic course on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
This week in Professor Gupta’s corporate social responsibility course we discussed Su’s Wall Street Journal article on “Trojan Horse Activism” and the implications of companies claiming that they are practicing corporate social responsibility versus actually carrying these actions out. After this we got to our discussion of the class subject which was “Are Corporations Pathological?” and viewed more of the documentary to answer questions with our groups. This part of the documentary focused on the patenting of genetic material and the ethics of it, but also privatization, and how it should be done. My group focused on the patenting of genetic material and how it should be moderated. We argued that this should be left up to a combination of governments and advisory boards, as corporations cannot just be left to regulate themselves. When asked about the privatization of water resources, I was left thinking that the issue with water remaining a common resource is that some countries do not possess their own water supplies and do not have the infrastructure or government strength to supply enough for their own people, so a central governing body to control this would improve this situation.

(2) Professors Swain and Gupta’s Internship Seminar
This week in Professor Swain and Gupta’s Internship Seminar we opened up class and discussed different communication styles. We reviewed our impressions of high context versus low context communication and which one we prefer while also acknowledging how this is biased by our own home, school, and living environments. Bouncing off of this, we discussed emotional expressivism and confrontation, which is a subject that I consider myself to be slightly uncomfortable with in most scenarios. I often avoid confrontation and try to not let emotions show through, particularly in a workplace setting, and it was interesting to hear about how these perspectives differ within a different cultural environment. We also discussed our own impressions of leadership and respect, and how our own views and norms differ from those commonly held by Italians. At the end of class, we started thinking about our final group presentations, which I am excited for but I think will be a lot of work.

(3) a Practicum in Milan with an Italian Company
This week at Turbo Crowd there is not that much that is new. Cooper and I are continuing scraping websites and in the next few days will be using new software to collect all of the contact information for all of Turbo Crowds clients that will be reached out to with a survey on the state of crowdfunding. With the scraping, we are close to finishing all of the equity companies and will be moving on to lending firms. We were originally supposed to do this through a third party, but the contact that I reached out to never responded to my message about helping our project, so we will be doing all the scraping on our own, which is totally fine! As for the rest of the week I will just continue working and making progress, and hopefully be able to move into the next stages of this project.

(4) Social and Cultural immersion through travels in Italy and Europe
This weekend, I traveled to Nice, France with some friends. Lilly and I took the train on Thursday and along the way made friends with the woman sitting next to us. She had studied abroad in Connecticut when she was a teenager and was so curious to hear about our abroad experience and internships while we traded stories. We also talked about her recent conference on corporate sustainability and she was very interested to hear about what we were learning in our course. It was a really great opportunity to connect with a local and compare cultures. Once we got to Nice we settled in and went to bed very quickly and woke up with the whole day ahead of us. On Friday, we went to a beach club in Nice and got to enjoy the sun and each other’s company and take in the scenery after getting a traditional French breakfast. That night, we went to a fantastic group dinner at a restaurant called Renee, and it was one of the best dinners I’ve had in a while. The next morning, Cara and I woke up early and decided to take in the sights of Nice on foot. We walked from our Airbnb to Villefranche-Sur-Mer on an oceanside hiking trail and it was absolutely beautiful. We got to take in sights that we never would have seen and enjoyed the beautiful weather of the weekend. After going for a swim we stopped for lunch at a local restaurant and had some delicious mussels. Later that afternoon, we met up with all of our friends, went to the beach, and explored the town before we ate dinner. The next morning we had to head home, and had our first experience with a train strike. Both of our trains ended up getting canceled which was fairly stressful, but we remained patient and made it home. This was a fantastic weekend and I had so much fun exploring a different area of Europe.

(1) Academic Enrichment via Professor Gupta’s Corporate Social Responsibility course
This week in Professor Gupta’s Corporate Social Responsibility class we dug deeper on the corporation and its economic evolution. It was super interesting to hear about the history of businesses dating all the way back to the 1600’s and the beginnings of stock trading, and was a good way to enhance our understanding of the modern stock market. Additionally, I presented my Wall Street Journal article regarding ethical sourcing of a particular company’s chocolate bars, and the bounds of sustainable consumption. I had the opportunity to discuss with my peers what ethical consumption really means, and we debated on whether it should actually carry weight in our purchasing decisions. I thought that the average person may be more likely to consume a product if it was environmentally sustainable, but Professor Gupta disagreed with me, claiming that talk is cheap and that most do not care as much as they say they do about the sourcing of their products.

(2) Academic Enrichment via Gupta/Swain Internship Seminar
This week in Professor Swain’s internship seminar we discussed our workplace encyclopedia profiles and how we researched them. I thought it was really interesting to hear more about Italy’s local economy and the typical experience of being a business owner in Italy. We learned about the very high volume of micro-firms in Italy which was very interesting as my internship is at a firm of twelve people. We talked about the causes of this, and how difficult it is to operate as a large corporation within Italy. Additionally, we discussed the deep regional disparities that exist within Italy and the differences in economic standings between the North and the South. In the United States I feel like this does not exist to the same extent as it does in Italy in terms of regionality defining earnings, academic achievement, personal achievement, and many other factors. These conversations we had today were very helpful to enhance our cultural analysis skills.

(3) Actual Internship
This week, Cooper and I had the opportunity to travel out of Milan to Monza to meet our team in person for the first time. We went to our bosses home and were able to participate in our weekly team meeting all in the same room, and communicate with our boss with questions about our project in real time. We also were able to share a meal with the team, and went to a local restaurant serving traditional cuisine from the city of Rome. While sharing a meal, we were able to talk much more about our own experiences and opinions, and got to know each other much better. Because most of the internship experience is virtual, this was an invaluable experience, and made me much more excited about the work I am doing for Turbo Crowd. I feel much more involved in the company that I am interning for than I was before.

(4) Cultural Immersion through group and personal travels
This past weekend, I was able to travel to Lake Como and the mountains that surround it. We started out on Saturday exploring the towns of Varenna, Bellano, and Bellagio. Cara and I went on the group hike from Varenna to Bellano and were able to see much more of the towns and the surrounding areas than we would have if we hadn’t gone on this hike. The views were stunning and the hike was a great way to get outside and move. After eating lunch in Bellano and taking the train back to Varenna we took a short ferry ride to Bellagio and were able to explore the town and visit some fun shops and gardens. After visiting Bellagio we got back on the bus and headed over to Rifugio Taveccia via a windy mountain road on some ancient Jeeps. This was a little scary on the way up because there was quite a drop off from the road but the lodge we arrived at was warm and offered some of the best food we’ve all had on this trip so far. After going to bed early we tried to wake up for sunrise and were met with nothing but clouds, but later woke up for breakfast and another hike! Overall this weekend was so much fun and I got to spend a lot of quality time with friends.

(1) Professor Gupta’s academic course on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
This week we finally got started with our in class instruction for the Corporate Social Responsibility course. Although communicating effectively with two groups and Professor Gupta took some time, I think we were able to create an environment that will be conducive to open group discussions. On the subject of group discussions, we were able to have many interesting ones this week. On Monday, we discussed Cooper’s Wall Street Journal entry regarding the impacts of social media mental health. It was really interesting to hear the different roles that social media plays in all of my classmates’ lives and to evaluate its impact on my own. Additionally, we watched two videos this week on Adam Smith and completed group assignments on the benefits of a free market economy. I thought the video was interesting and I enjoyed being able to also have conversations in smaller groups.

(2) Professors Swain and Gupta’s Internship Seminar
This week in Professor Swain’s internship seminar we had a group discussion about our personal culture profiles, and got to hear from our peers about what we think shapes our attitudes towards success, workplace culture, and career goals. We also discussed the “Head or the Heart” article and evaluated it on the metrics of the personal culture profile, assigning different traits for the differing workplace attitudes of other cultures. My favorite part of the seminar this week was our debate on the ethical and moral dilemmas set forth in the “Parable of the Sadhu” article. It really made me consider where my opinions lie in regards to helping others and our moral duties as humans to do so, and I appreciated hearing both sides of the argument in the in-class debate.

(3) a Practicum in Milan with an Italian Company
This week in my internship with Turbo Crowd I got to attend a full team meeting for the first time, which was a great opportunity to put faces to names. The majority of the meeting was in Italian, which was a bit confusing obviously, but still a great experience overall. This week I ran into some challenges using the data scraping software Octoparse, but learned a lot more in our meeting on Wednesday. This week, I think I got into a much better schedule for virtual work and was able to be a lot more productive. In the coming weeks, the team is trying to organize a lunch at our bosses house so that we can work out some details for our project in person. I am looking forward to it!

(4) Social and Cultural immersion through travels in Italy and Europe
This week I stayed in Milan mostly, but explored some new spots. On Monday, myself and some friends decided to take a break from Italian food and went to Misushi, a sushi restaurant close to Aparto. It was really fun to try out a new place with friends! This week I have also been exploring more of the area surrounding our housing by going on runs. I have found several new parks to run around and explored the canals earlier this week. It’s been a great way to get to know the city a little bit better. On Thursday, we attended a wine tasting with the whole group, and got to learn more about how to analyze the different flavors and qualities of different wines, which is something I had never done before. I thought it was really cool to hear from someone who knew so much about a subject that I knew absolutely nothing about, and it was great to hang out with friends. This weekend, we will be going to Lake Como and I look forward to seeing a different part of Italy.

1) Professor Gupta’s academic course on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

This week for Professor Gupta’s Corporate Social Responsibility course I completed a number of assignments to prepare me for the beginning of the course tomorrow. For my article, I investigated the impacts of private equity investment in healthcare, and how it has impacted the patient experience. I learned about the current lack of regulation of private equity interference and cases regarding the monopolization of healthcare as seen in the state of Texas’ anesthesiology practices. It made me consider how these large corporations have an obligation to consider how their investments are impacting the state of healthcare in the United States. Additionally, I did an article summary assignment regarding deglobalization, which will be discussed in class on Monday.

2) Professors Swain and Gupta’s Internship Seminar

This week in Professor Swain’s Internship Seminar course we reviewed the principles of how to be an efficient and well mannered worker in our internships. We discussed practicing soft skills, and building and maintaining relationships in the workplace under different cultural standards. We also completed an assignment regarding our personal culture profiles and were forced to evaluate what aspects of our upbringing and environments we were raised in shaped our workplace attitudes. I reflected on how the hustle and bustle culture of New York City that I was raised so close to, and the intense competition of my highschool, and how it has created my attitudes towards the implications of having a corporate job. I felt like it has made me have very extreme impressions of corporate life, but has also emphasized my beliefs in hard work.

3) a Practicum in Milan with an Italian Company

This week I continued my internship activities and felt as if I gained valuable problem solving skills. At the beginning of the week I was slightly confused as to where to start with my internship, as myself and my fellow intern were given a massive assignment with very little direction and I found myself very overwhelmed. This forced me to rely more on my peers and ask questions even when I was either embarrassed or nervous to do so. However, after starting I felt that I was able to get a lot of headway on our project, and was able to make a game plan for the rest of the internship.

4) Social and Cultural immersion through travels in Italy and Europe

This week we traveled to Morgex in the Italian Alps and spent the whole day exploring the mountains and getting to know a different area of Italy. It was really great to get out of the city for a day and experience a slower pace of life, and the views were absolutely breathtaking. We made it all the way to the lake and although it was scary it was so much fun to do with everyone. This Sunday, I went to a completely different new place and spent a day at the beach in San Margherita. It was a super relaxing day by the ocean and it was great to try some local seafood! We spent quite a lot of time figuring out the trains but it was a good learning experience on expecting the unpredictable train schedules in Italy.

This week for Professor Gupta’s course I wrote my first Wall Street Journal entry on an article about what happens to our data on social media and other internet sites after we die. The article focused on author Carl Öhman’s novel “The Afterlife of Data: What Happens to Your Information When You Die and Why You Should Care” and the questions raised in said article. Highlighted points included the lack of direction in what companies can do with “digital ghosts,” and whether they can delete inactive accounts or store the data and use it for user demographic assessments. I asked the question of whether there will ever be a standard, mandatory protocol for what should happen to our data after we die or if it will be forever left up to corporations. In terms of my own experience, in my time in Milan so far I have noticed some differences in the way that businesses function. I have noticed that businesses are much slower paced here than they are in the US and there is less of a focus on convenience. For example, I have observed that it is not as common to get food to go, and that businesses open up much later than they do in the US. In the following weeks I look forward to observing more about Milans CSR standards with the information I will gain from Professor Gupta’s class.

Today in Professor Swain’s course we went over the basics of how to be an effective and well mannered worker in our internships. We spoke about practicing soft skills, and how to build and maintain relationships in the workplace under different cultural standards. We also discussed differences in cultural behaviors and attitudes in the workplace, and assessed specific workplace scenarios and assigned different qualities to them from the chart we had to fill out. This activity made me consider how in many ways Americans are much harsher about the standards of conduct expected in the workplace and more specifically how much we focus on individualism. I look forward to learning more about these cultural differences to better understand workplace culture, with the hopes that I will gather what type of workplace I think I would do best in.

This summer, my fellow classmate, Cooper Nelson, and I will be interning for Turbo Crowd. Turbo Crowd is a marketing consultancy firm that specializes in developing strategies and activities that will attract funding for crowdfunding campaigns. In our meeting today, we went over some of our goals for the summer, which included developing a report for the state of crowdfunding activities in 2024, and were given data and references on how to do so. Along with assigning tasks, we also got set up on programs such as Slack and Coda so we can be looped in on the company’s activities. I am looking forward to getting started and seeing more of what is to come in my internship experience.

Today marks our first week in Milan and so far the city has been nothing short of amazing. The first two days of the trip were slightly confusing as it was quite the shock to the system arriving in a completely new city without speaking the language, but with each passing day I find myself feeling more comfortable and better acclimated. I have even started to remember directions to things, and yesterday we made it to the IES center without using directions. This past weekend was packed with activities such as the group trip to Lake Maggiore, an AC Milan soccer game, and a trip to a local vintage market with friends. I really enjoyed picking up on bits of Milan’s culture while attending the AC Milan game with Cara and Lilly, and learned how important soccer, or “calcio” is to Italians.

My expectations for Professor Gupta’s Corporate Social Responsibility course are to learn more about the global business environment and to broaden my understanding of the ethics of business. I expect to learn a great deal through a conversation based course because I will not only be developing my own opinions but also hearing the opinions of my peers. I am excited to know more about positive ethical change in the business world. 

As a rising junior I have had very little experience in the professional world, and I expect that Academic Enrichment via Gupta/Swain Internship Seminar will broaden my current knowledge. I hope to be provided with the framework of what to expect in an internship and to hone my professional skills with hopes of applying my education from this class to real world scenarios. By engaging in discussions with my peers and industry professionals I will learn to better navigate organizational environments and corporate settings. The internship seminar will hopefully connect in-class learning to real world professional experiences to make me a better professional in my chosen field

The internship component of the Lehigh-In-Milan program offers us a unique opportunity to acquire real world experience in a professional setting that is streamlined with our interests both academically and career-wise. I look forward to applying what I have learned in my education at Lehigh in an experiential learning setting to deepen my understanding of my chosen industry. I hope to broaden my professional network, clarify my career interests, and build my confidence as a professional individual.

The cultural immersion prospects of the Lehigh-in-Milan program are one of the main factors that brought me to the program in the first place. I cannot wait to immerse myself in a new culture while being able to share these new experiences with my peers. I hope that through group excursions and experiences I may foster meaningful connections with both locals and fellow students. On an individual level, I believe that cultural immersion can serve as a means for self discovery, personal growth, and experiential learning.