This past Sunday, the Lehigh in Milan program participated in a walking tour of Milan. We were able to see many areas, and learn of stories, as well as special keys as to how to get the most of our time in Milan. This past Monday was my first full day of my internship, and I went to get lunch and coffee with some of the people that I work with. I had lasagna with pesto for the first time, and Giuseppe, who I worked with, told me this is a dish that his mother made when he was growing up.  On Wednesday, our group visited the Last Supper painting. First of all, I had no clue that this was in Milan. Secondly, I was surprised by the way this painting looked: with dull colors, but our tour guide explained the history, including bombings, that led the painting to be this way. I am still getting used to the late meals in Milan, as I usually have 5 o’clock dinners in the United States. My favorite meal this week was cooked for me by Francesco, an IES employee who lives with our group, who made us pasta carbonara.

My internship placement this summer at Clarkson Hyde has significantly helped me to learn more about the Italian language. Currently, I am working on helping with the financial statements for Voi, a technology company that has electric scooters in Milan, as well as other cities. One of the greatest challenges I have had comes from entering expense information from bank statements. The causes of the charges, all written in Italian, do not directly correspond with the expense categories available on the program we use for financial statements. Because of this, not only do I have to learn the words, I have to gain a true understanding of the language so that I can understand where the charges came from, and what an applicable expense category would be. The workplace culture at Clarkson Hyde Italy is significantly different than the one in the United States. Breaks with coworkers, to get food, coffee, or go for a walk are much more frequent than in the United States. While this may be attributable to the small size of Clarkson Hyde, I felt that very early on, I was given tasks that had a great impact on the company as a whole.

I was genuinely excited to read the book The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power for our class with Professor Gupta. I already had a vague idea of what corporations will do in order to gain power, but a few select anecdotes from this book really resonated with me. As a naturally cynical person, I was always skeptical of charity measures taken by corporations. One of the stories told both in the book and a movie we watched spoke about young girls in a factory who were working long, unbearable hours, in poor working conditions. The author of the book went to go visit them, and when he saw their pay stubs, realized that the brand they were making clothes for boasted how a portion of proceeds went to childhood charity. How could a brand brag about supporting children when their clothes were made by 13-year-old girls in sweatshops? I was entranced by this point, and brought it up for discussion in our class with professor Gupta. He asked me one question that opened my eyes to the reality of the situation. “Knowing this, will you change the way you now buy clothes?” I have always been a proponent of the fact that corporations should be the ones to make change on these issues, not making the consumer feel guilty, since a change in my actions will not make a real difference in the grand scheme of things. However, I now realize that the thing currently holding corporations in check is the value of my dollar. They won’t change their ways, because they know my money is waiting on the other side. The corporation is a psychopath: it does not have morals to guide itself. As long as the corporation exists in the way we know it, the only way it will change is with the presence or absence of my monetary support.