After being in Milan for a second week, life here is definitely getting to feel more normal. Taking public transportation no longer startles me, ordering at restaurants in Italian is less frightening, and working at my internship at Circularity feels engaging and fun. With the republic day of Italy this Thursday, I was able to accomplish a lot both academically and personally around Italy this week. This Monday was Kelly, Jay, and I’s first full day at work which was so exciting because we spent the whole day working on our roles and were able to explore the area around our building to get lunch and practice some of our Italian skills. Each of our projects push us past our comfort zones, and mine, personally, really allows me to combine my conceptual understanding of computer science with the business world and data organization. I have never worked in an environment where sustainability is being combined with technology, so it feels very interesting to be able to research and provide my ideas in an innovative way. While I still get overwhelmed with the 40 to 50 minute commute, my experiences in the workplace make the commute to Circularity worth it. 

Academically, I was introduced to many conversations about the business world that I did not traditionally think about before Professor Gupta’s class in Milan. This week we watched the documentary, “The Corporation”, in Corporate Social Responsibility class in which the film detailed the greed that takes place in the actions and makeup of a corporation as a legal entity. I was really surprised by how negative this documentary was in describing the examples of the unethical actions of corporations. It raised a large question in my mind through our discussion in class about why corporations always tend to care more about profit even if they do have CSR or sustainability because so many of the speakers in the documentary were those that spoke poorly about the intentions of corporations while being workers of corporations. Furthermore, in Professor Swain’s Italian culture class, it was exciting to hear about all the differences my peers and I noticed between American workplaces and our workplaces here in Milan. We even spoke about general cultural differences and parts of our daily lives which was fun to compare to my personal experiences.

Since my company, due to the holiday, offered 2 days off this week, my friends and I were able to do some fun traveling! After work, I was able to explore parts of Milan: shop around, do a wine tasting, and grab some gelato. I am happy that we got to see the famous painting, The Last Supper, with our class. On Thursday, we went to Lake Como which was very touristy and crowded, but nonetheless it was beautiful. We got to ride a tram up to the mountains and participated in some fun, unexpected hiking by getting lost up there. The next day we had our day trip to Bologna which was really fun, and my favorite part was making authentic tortellini with everyone in our class and Mrs. G(of course 🙂 ) . On Saturday, my friends and I were able to explore Venice which was also beautiful and so amazing to see in person. While the Gondola ride was very expensive, I would say it is worth it because I got some cool pictures and was so excited to be on one. This weekend was busy, tiring, but so fun because I could see so much both in Milan with my work adventures and so many other major cities in Italy!