At my internship, on Wednesday, my teammates and I created another presentation detailing the market research we did for the two entrepreneurs we are working with, where we talked about existing potential competitors and what the companies are doing. I also focused more on the technical aspects of our assignment, going over scientific papers to find which AI methods seem most promising in terms of what they are looking for. They gave us some feedback and things to add before our final presentation and meeting this coming week, which I’m excited to work on.

This week in class, we got to visit Circularity, one of the companies Lehigh students are interning at this summer. It was really interesting to hear about their company and goals, as well as learn about businesses they are working with. On Thursday, we watched the movie ‘Erin Brockovich’, the story of a woman who seeks justice for hundreds of people whose lives have been negatively impacted by a large corporation. The movie left me with a lot to think about, and especially the thought that one person could really make a difference. In Professor Swain’s class this week, we compared efficiency and leadership across countries, and continued working on our final projects which I’m looking forward to presenting with my team next week.

This weekend, my friends and I traveled to Barcelona, which is probably one of my favorite cities in the world. I had been there when I was really little, so I didn’t remember much, which made it all the more fun. We visited all of the famous monuments, including the stunning Sagrada Familia and Park Guell. We also found a really cute market for lunch one day, where they had the most refreshing juices, then headed to see FC Barcelona’s home stadium, Camp Nou, which as a huge soccer fan was a definite highlight for me. It was really cool to walk around the stadium and get a glimpse into the players’ lives. We ended the weekend with a relaxing evening at the beach, and I definitely can’t wait to come back here again.

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 in class we visited Circularity to listen to a presentation about the company and what it does. Circularity is essentially a business that aims to motivate other companies to alter their operations in a way that promotes a circular economy. The circular economy is a model of production and consumption, which involves sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling existing materials and products as long as possible. I thought it was a super interesting concept but left the presentation with some questions. The company does not make revenue which is very odd. They receive start-up money from the Italian government but I’m not sure how they plan on growing in the future and have the ability to pay employee wages and rent.

At HERE Fashion Hub this week, Gunnar and I looked at seven more mature luggage brands and entered their financial data into an excel sheet. We are officially finished with our competitive analysis and will present a business strategy presentation to our boss, Filippo this week. It is very sad that this is the last week of the internship, but I believe a gained a lot of good experience from it. I learned a lot about the travel industry which I knew nothing about coming into this trip. I also learned a lot of soft skills such as presentation and communication skills. I am sure my experience at HERE will translate to my professional career after college.

It was a beautiful week in Milan. On Tuesday my friends and I went to our first “apertivo.” this is essentially happy hour in Italy where you order a drink and the waiter brings out a bunch of snacks. We sat at the canals for hours talking and reflecting about our time here in Milan. It is truly depressing that we are heading into our last week and I am trying to make the most out of these last few days. On Wednesday I played basketball and got Gelato with my friends Will and Jay. The gelato in Italy is pretty unreal and I it is going to be hard adjusting to ice cream in the United States.

Academic Course on Corporate Social Responsibility

Unlike our typical work week in class, this week we ventured to Circularity, an environmental consultancy corporation, and learned about their mission to achieve a circular economy through sustainability efforts. It was amazing to hear the positive impact of a reusable circular economy and inspiring to hear how this company is integrating companies globally under one common mission. For our second class of the week we watched the movie about Erin Brockovich and her quest to uncover a lifesaving scandal committed by a community gas and electric company. This movie is now one of my favorite movies as it highlights Erin Brockovich’s strength as a working women during that time, as well as depicts a clear example of how corporations prioritize wealth over the lives of those in the community. One of my biggest takeaways from this movie will be how although Erin was not a lawyer and never worked before, she gained the respect of her peers, even more than those with Harvard law degrees, because of her determination, personality, and pure passion for the case.

Practicum in Milan with an Italian Company

Keeping up with the law theme from our film in class, this week at Assofintech we researched the similarities and differences of Fintech regulations globally. I studied the different laws and ways of operation of cryptocurrency and insurance tech in not only Italy, but also Germany, Norway, London, Australia, and Singapore. Through our findings we looked for different companies to partner with in these regions in order to learn and advance from each other. I spent the week researching, finding partners, and sending out introductory emails stating our companies mission. This research is rewarding because it ends with making a new global partner as well as advancing my knowledge in the Fintech industry.

Social and Cultural Immersion through travels in Italy and Europe

It is crazy to think that while making our plans for this weekend we decided to stay “home” in Milan for one of our last weekends. Milan has truly grown into a place of familiarity and definitely a home away from home. We spent the weekend shopping, exploring the areas of Milan we have yet to see, and of course we spent a lot of time eating. I will miss the Friday routines of getting home from work, going to dinner with all of my friends, followed by a gelato run, then a fun night on the patio or at a local bar. We spent most of the day on Saturday shopping around the Duomo taking in the amazing views and of course acting as a true Italian, we spent time “people watching”. I would do anything to have a couple more weekends with my friends on the canals eating great food and having the time of our lives.

This week in our Corporate Social Responsibility class we had a bit of a change from our normal schedule. On Tuesday, we visited Circularity to hear about their sustainable start-up company. My favorite part of this trip was when we watched a ted-talk about how the minerals that go into our smartphones come from conflict mines in the Congo. I never stopped to think before about how I can’t open my phone up to fix it which naturally leads to a lot more waste. I later learned that this was an intentional move of cell phone organizations to gain more profit. I was very intrigued when Professor Gupta explained that there was a time when the government-mandated corporations disclosed where their minerals were sourced from in an effort to reduce the resources bought from conflict areas. However, the class as a whole agreed that we would previously never look at where the materials from our phones were sourced which makes the disclosure legislation less effective. I began to think a lot about how much waste I produce on a daily basis and how so many of the items I use on a daily basis are far from sustainable. I would like to take some tips from Circularity going forward and attempt to work on limiting the amount of waste I create. I also have begun thinking about how I can integrate sustainability into my life at school or within my sorority house.

This week I have been working on my final presentation for TempoCasa. Jon and I were assigned the responsibility of analyzing why real estate agents have such different connotations in America and Italy. We have also begun creating marketing strategies that TempoCasa can use in order to brand its real estate agents better. I have noticed that across all of the real estate companies I have researched in Italy, they rarely market photos of their properties on their social media platforms. This was strange to me as American real estate companies prioritize photographs of their new listings in order to attract new customers. When I asked my supervisor about this difference, she stated that Italians are much more relationship-oriented. Therefore, they appeal to a consumer’s emotions and try to exemplify the relationships which can be nurtured in a new home. I then had to change my marketing suggestions in order to make real estate agents appear much more emotional. Previously in Italian history, real estate agents have been seen as greedy and selfish. Therefore, I am still working on creating ways that this image can be shifted. 

Last weekend I traveled to Prague. This was such an interesting experience because Prague was very different from any city I have seen before. The architecture there is so unique with distinguishing colors and dates back to the 800s. My favorite places that I visited (as suggested by Professor Gupta) were the Prague Castle conglomerate and also the old Prague Clocktower. I was amazed by the view of the city from the castle which allowed me to see the U.S. embassy as well as the beautiful river. Although the food in Italy is amazing, I think that Prague still has my favorite food. I had two meals that featured duck and potato dumplings. Czech is known for making beef with a carrot sauce that was outstanding. Some cultural factor I noticed was that Czech people were very nationalistic. The people we spoke to were very proud of their customs and history. Almost all of the kids our age there knew the history of the buildings we were passing by which is different than what I have experienced in America. Also, the Czech people were extremely friendly and not as rude to tourists as they were in France. 

This week in class, we were able to visit my place of Internship, Circularity. It was so fun being able to show my classmates my commute to work, as it is a bit on the longer side. When we arrived at Circularity, we were greeted by my supervisor and were given an in depth presentation. My supervisor explained to the class what Circularity is all about and gave us time to ask questions. I was very happy to have my classmates learn a little bit about what my place of internship does. On Thursday, we watched a film called “Erin Brockovich” where we discussed more topics on CSR. I found it so interesting that a company like PG&E would be able to lie to the public about the safety of their water, even though it was killing people. This comes to show that not all corporations value CSR as much as we may hope so.

This week at my internship I was able to really crackdown on my final projects. I submitted two presentations, one on User Personas and the other on Competitive Analysis. When I showed my supervisor, she was impressed with how quickly I was able to produce quality results. We are planning to meet Friday to go over them so that I can get feedback before I make any final submissions. I am sad that I only have a week left at Circularity. I have really come to love the office and everyone that works there. Although I do not do any real work that contributes to the success of the company, I am grateful that I am being given work that can contribute to my own personal work experience.

This past weekend I was able to travel to Florence, Italy. I know it has been usually hot this summer in Italy, but my time in Florence was some of the hottest days I have ever experienced. Luckily, we have friends from other colleges there and they were able to show us around and give us insight on where to go and what to see. We saw the David replica and the main Cathedral which were both so beautiful. During the night, we went to a local bar that is made for American tourists. This bar was called Lions Fountain and the ceiling of the building has teeshirts from popular universities in the US. We were able to find the Lehigh University teeshirt and we ended up signing the shirt! Overall, I loved Florence and would love to go back some day.

This was another great week in Milan, but I am beginning to be quite sad as our time here is almost up. The class was very interesting again this week. On Tuesday we had a business presentation at a company called Circularity. It is a Milanese startup that focuses on the circular economy, and helping companies to work towards working within the circular economy to both make more money and to also better benefit the environment. On Thursday we watched a really good movie called Erin Brockovich and discussed the implications on business both within our project groups and also as a larger class group. The movie is based on real-life events surrounding a company called PG+E, the environmental/societal disasters that they have committed, and the repercussions both financially and within the communities that were affected.

My internship also continues to churn on, making more and more progress every week. Pat and I submitted our final article on the state of scale-up and start-up valuations, and we were both quite pleased with how it turned out. Our supervisor was also quite happy with our work, and what was originally supposed to be a one-time thing, we are now writing another article that is due next week. This made us both happy, shows how we have grown significantly within the workplace and shows how our boss trusts us slightly more. In addition to the articles, we are still continuing to work on the descriptions for the private equity investment firms. I am looking forward to wrapping up the work this week, and have been really grateful for the experience.

This week was full of travel and fun. My friends and I went to Geneva, Switzerland over the weekend, and had a wonderful time. This was probably one of the coolest places that I have ever seen and very high on the list of places that I would love to live in one day. We took a 6-hour bus ride there on Friday which was surprisingly really cool. We were able to see a lot of northwest Italy, and teh views of the Alps were absolutely stunning. In Geneva, we spent a lot of time on the beach by the lake, and in the evening we spent much of it at a street food festival that happened to be going on that weekend. The food and vibes were truly unbeatable. Over both Saturday and Sunday, we explored the city, visited Old Town, took a boat tour, and tried lots of chocolate and cheese. The rest of the week has been pretty chill, apart from the highlight which was easily going to Professor Gupta’s and Mrs. G’s apartment for dinner on Wednesday. Not only was it easily some of the tastiest food that I have had since coming to Milan (thanks Mrs. G), but it was just overall a great time. Beyond that, I have spent a good deal of my free time making sure that I am caught up and ahead on work, both for the class and for my internship. I am writing this blog as I get ready to go to Vienna for the weekend, which I am looking forward to greatly. They have the oldest zoo in the world, among many other cool things that I have been researching, that I can not wait to see.

It seems that much like a fine wine, Italy gets better with time. I again have to admit that the past week has been the most enjoyable and educational yet.

Our class has really caused me to change my outlook and thought process about our markets, the stakeholders, and their interactions with the governing powers. For example, this week we looked deeper into the externalities that are a result of some of our favorite brands. Our main focus was on Apple, and it’s lawsuits in relation to Foxconn; specifically, we watched a documentary relating to working conditions. We also discussed whether we will continue to purchase their products, and how we justify it. We discussed whether it was reasonable to expect such a large conglomerate with such slim margins to be able to control the working conditions in a country that has different ethical values and laws. It was truly upsetting to hear that so many brands which we consume on a daily basis use unethical labor as a part of their normal supply chains. This discussion left me reconsidering my behavior as a consumer.

This weekend, I went to Prague to visit my friend Vaclav who I met through my prep-school Hockey team. This experience was really one of a kind as I got to reunite with one of my friends while he showed us around one of the most beautiful cities I have even seen. Some of the best parts were the Prague Castle which is the largest conglomerate of castles in the world and the old Clocktower which cookoos every hour. It was really crazy to hear how ancient the city of Prague is; the very streets we were walking on were built in the 1400s. While observing the beautiful architecture I also noticed some cultural differences. For example, the people there spoke a lot less English than they do in Milan. The language spoken there is Czhech and the currency they use is the Czech crown. This form of currency is extremely inflated which initially surprised me as the first drink I bought was around 100 Czch. Despite these differences, the people were extremely friendly and the food was absolutely phenomenal. My food recommendation from the trip would be duck and potato dumplings.

My work has become increasingly interesting as it becomes more difficult. My partner, Sean, and I have been tasked with creating a slideshow following the tactics and strategies similar companies have been using to make themselves more attractive for investment. Additionally, we have been tasked with mapping out how they keep that money and turn it into profit. Our sector is pretty niche as it does not fall directly into luggage and travel, and we base our evaluations on similar startups. We have also been tasked with following publicly traded stocks that provide similar services, following the same processes of evaluating their cash flows and regional sales. Our boss is still working from Hong Kong, so we meet with him virtually to check our progress and receive constructive criticism when needed.

This week in class we discussed an Apple case study analyzing the role of apple socially in response to their suppliers having unethical working conditions. This made me question the levels and limits corporations can be helpful responsible for social good and wrongdoings. As a class, we got to discuss these types of questions and understand this situation with valuing profit, lower costs, and ethics in terms of bringing manufacturing outside the United States for cheaper labor. This case study also raised questions regarding outsourcing and public good versus strong customer loyalty which was unique to think about. After, we watched a lecture from Professor Gupta’s previous class to grasp what the responsibility of shareholders would be to act upon social issues. We left questioning if the corporation is the new vehicle for social good in society because of its role.

Moving on, this week in my internship at Circularity, I worked to continue analyzing their database for their future digital platforms. I was able to use Microsoft excel to organize their information and their connections between potential users of this platform. I find it interesting working for their mission of being a circular economy driver because it makes me learn more about sustainability and its efforts in Italy. Also, in comparing waste management systems between America and Italy, I learned about the organization methods and recycling efforts in Italy. Using this research, I work to create ER diagrams to showcase one to many relationships between users on the platform and waste cores they would interact with as either waste producers, re-users , or evaluators. 

Outside of school and my internship, I was able to explore more parts of Milan and even travel outside of the country to Budapest, Hungary for the weekend. In Milan, I went shopping a couple of times and discovered many parts of the city in my journey to find an electronic sim card across many phone stores. This week was also Jenny’s birthday, so we grabbed dinner and drinks on Monday to celebrate after work. In Budapest, I noticed differences in the architecture and atmosphere of this city in relation to Milan. Every building in the city of Budapest showcased a lot of intricacy and historical details. Additionally, I noticed that there are more tourists visiting in which I heard so many more languages spoken( beyond just Italian and English). Also, I tried a chimney cake in Hungary which was one of their popular street foods. We took a boat on the Danube river, saw the Parliament building, and the St. Stephan’s Basilica which was all very exciting!