This week in my internship, I worked to finish up some of the things I had been working on over the course of the summer. First, I had to make some corrections to my supplier database. While I had completed all of the information, I had to go into the individual form entries and approve the suppliers for use in our accounting system. Once I was able to clear all of the entries, I then had to input some invoices for the company. I have found my time at Clarkson Hyde this summer very rewarding. I was able to make real connections with my colleagues, and learn both hard and soft skills. While I gained proficiency in excel and some accounting software, I also learned how to problem solve and think on my feet.

 

In class this week, I was able to watch the final presentations of all of the different groups within my academic course on corporate social responsibility. Some of the topics covered were the impacts of big pharma, the gender pay gap in corporate america, and free speech and social media. One of the presentations that stuck out to me the most was regarding social media and its impact on teens. I always understood that the idea of comparisons to unreal standards  and cyberbullying on social media were negative effects, but the studies used by the group regarding lack of sleep and wasted time really opened my eyes to the other realities of the negative effects social media can have on teens. 

 

As it was my last week in Milan, I wanted to be able to visit some of my favorite places from my time spent here. I had my last dinner with friends, after taking a boat ride on the canals with the whole program. The networking event, held on wednesday, was a wonderful way to end the trip. I was able to meet all of my friends’ work sponsors, and spend some time with mine outside of the workplace environment. While I knew I would be seeing the people on this trip from Lehigh again, it was difficult to say goodbye to my workplace colleagues and the IES staff as I would likely never see them again. It is always a very bittersweet thing when people are a large part of your life for a short amount of time, making such an impact on you in the small period you spend together. However, I know the connections I have made over my time in Milan will be everlasting.

This week at my internship, I finished a project that has been two weeks in the making. My company, Clarkson Hyde, took on a new client, and I had to update the accounting records to reflect all of their customers and suppliers. This was my first long-term assignment at the company, when I had previously been doing smaller things to help around the office. I was excited to see that I had gained the trust of my colleagues, as they assigned me a large project. I have been forming strong workplace relationships with the others in my office, and while they have been teaching me Italian, I help them learn English. On Thursday, I encountered the first time when my colleague was trying to explain something to me about the new assignment I would be taking on, and there was not a direct translation to the word. 

 

In class this week, we watched the Erin Brockovich movie. I found this very interesting, because it opened my eyes to something new about what it takes to enact change. One of the moments in the movie showed Erin more successful in a task than a woman who went to Harvard Law School because of her relationship building skills. The lawyer was not able to talk to the plaintiffs and convince them to sign a document like Erin could, because she was able to have a real conversation with them, and people tend to prefer someone personable over a robot. I really connected this with our class discussions about ESG practices. One of the main reasons that I have always been personally skeptical of these is because they don’t feel genuine, since they are made by higher-ups within businesses. I think if there were more personable people creating ESG initiatives, I might be more trusting of them. 

 

For my last weekend, I took a trip to Barcelona. It was a very beautiful city with lots of colorful architecture. One of my favorite parts of the trip was visiting the food market within the city. There was so much fresh fruit, and I had the best strawberry kiwi juice while there. While I was told Italy does not really use air conditioning much, I found that while in Milan, many of the buildings were equipped with A.C. However, in Barcelona, very few buildings had air conditioning and it was a very warm trip. On our last night, we watched the sunset on the beach, and I found it very interesting how many people seemed to have came to the beach in the morning and stayed there until 9-10 pm. 

This week at my internship placement I am working on updating our databases. I am making sure all clients and suppliers for each company that Clarkson Hyde works with are accounted for within the accounting system. I have found this very interesting because of the observations I have been able to make about the scope of business within Milan and Italy as a whole. Almost all suppliers and clients for an Italian company are located within the country, and a large number are within the same city that the company operates in. This can likely be attributed to the fact that in Milan, most businesses are small, around 10-15 employees. This shows that doing business on a global scale may not be as common as it is in the United States.

 

In class, I have tried to learn more about ESG investing. For my Wall Street Journal entry, an assignment that we do every week in Professor Gupta’s class, I examined an investigation into Goldman Sachs regarding an ESG fund that they have created. Investing that focuses on sustainable and socially responsible companies is something that has become increasingly popular in recent years. Many investment and asset management companies have attempted to create ESG funds in order to appeal to these investors. However, the term ESG is constantly evolving, which has led to many organizations, including the SEC, refraining from defining it. Professor Gupta asked me a question that made me reconsider my original positioning on this matter. He asked me “if the term ESG cannot yet be defined, how can we accuse companies of misusing it?” While the specific fund investigated in my Wall Street Journal project is clearly not an ESG fund, legally, there is no basis for an accusation of Goldman Sachs misusing the term. 

 

This week, I really wanted to take time to explore Milan out of the areas I visit on a daily basis. I took the tram to Milan Chinatown with a few friends, and found the area very interesting. One of the things that surprised me the most was the fact that when we went, around 7pm, everything but a few restaurants seemed to be closed. In other areas of Milan, 7pm feels like the start of the day, as this is when many people get off of work. However, just being in another area of the same city, the schedule felt completely different. Walking a few minutes away, I got to see the three large towers that stand high against the low skyline of Milan. They house the offices of some well-known companies, including Microsoft. Again, going just a few minutes into a new area, the architecture looked completely different than what I see going to class or work. Having spent a few weeks here, I find it very interesting to see how many sub-areas there are in Milan, and how different they can be from one another. 

One of the most compelling things I learned in class this week was regarding the agricultural biotechnology industry. Personally, I am a very conscious consumer when it comes to food. I look at the ingredient labels on everything I buy, and try to stay away from most processed foods. The second half of the movie “the corporation” discussed a growth hormone used in cows, that led to many health complications in those who consumed dairy made from cows with this hormone. The video also discussed how the company, Monsanto, came after a reporter who covered this issue on a television show. The company did not want word getting out about this, and used the power of lawyers to get the reporter to step down. I really had to take time and think after watching this part of the movie. As careful as I am when it comes to looking at the food I eat, could I still be consuming things that are causing me harm because the corporations that make them are so powerful they can hide the truth about their products?

 

In my internship this week, I started to expand on my duties as an intern. In addition to my usual duties of working with bank statements and expense reports, I started to help out my coworkers by checking some reports that they had made. I was tasked with looking over the reports in the accounting system we use to make sure that everything matches up. If there were any discrepancies, I would explain to them my reasoning as to where the mistake could have been made. While it seems small, it feels that trust has been built between me and the others in my office, leading me to take on more responsibility. Additionally, I attended my first office-wide meeting on Tuesday. While I was not really able to understand anything that was said, since it was all in Italian, I got to see the layout of a meeting within Clarkson Hyde, as well as the dynamics between different people in my office. It seemed, for the most part, to be a really open environment where nobody was afraid to speak up. 

 

After 3 weeks in Italy, I began to grow tired of pizza and pasta for every meal. Some friends and I ventured to a Chinese restaurant, where we had dumplings that were very delicious. On the way back, we experienced something that had never happened to one of us before. Usually, I do not press the stop button on the tram, and it still stops where I plan to get off. However, this time it kept going, and I had to ride the tram an extra stop before going back to Aparto. This weekend I decided to take a trip to Genoa. On the night I got in, I stopped by the beach known as the best place to watch the sunset, and it really was beautiful. There are 3 different beaches within walking distance from where I am staying, but my favorite would have to be Vernazzola beach. Unlike the beaches I am used to in the United States, it is made up of rocks and pebbles, which I prefer to the typical sand.

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.