Hello everyone I am back again with my weekly update. I hope you are all doing well! Today was my first day at my internship with PSA BDP, a sustainability-focused global supply chain solutions and logistics company. I had the opportunity to meet with the HR supervisors on Friday to get acquainted with the office, meet fellow coworkers, and get an overall better understanding of what this experience might look like. This helped to ease my qualms as now I know how to use the trams and metro in Prague to get to work, which building to enter, and many other aspects of starting work. This morning, I was able to enter the building with no issues with my ID card and began getting settled. I got my desk which was right across from my supervisor, Dominička, and with the rest of the 8-person all-female team. My main priority for today was to log into my account, look through my 400 emails, and begin the required training for internal operations (work health and well-being) as well as external operations (GDPR rules & regulations and Export Control Regulations).
The industry that PSA BDP operates in is the supply chain, logistics, and transportation industry but their clientele are in various industries such as Chemicals, Consumer Goods & Perishables, Industrial, and Healthcare and Life Sciences. Their main offerings of goods and services are international transportation and shipping, warehousing, and conformance to individual country regulations. The service is the end-to-end process of transporting goods from one place to another to ensure the right product(s) are at the right place at the right time with their primary value add being their shipping abilities, ports and docks, and the international perspective for logistics so that their customers do not need to concern themselves with these prevalent logistical issues.
The key skills and strengths necessary to succeed in this industry are the ability to problem solve, a high-level perspective to ensure all aspects are met and cohesive, the skill of organization and arranging, the ability to listen and understand, and the always-needed skill of effectively communicating. From a more hard-skill perspective, you need to be able to use the technology, have a background/understanding of the goods you are shipping, and have both a predictive and retrospective mindset. I am excited to see what projects I get and the impacts I leave on the company, what I am able to learn about global logistics and operations, and how I grow personally and professionally.
Outside of the internship, this first week has been a great opportunity to get acquainted with the city and its culture, meet new people on the program, and begin to settle into the European way of living. The day we moved in, a group of us decided to go grocery shopping and we happened across a little farmer’s market that is open every weekday and we could not have been more excited. We were able to buy fresh fruits (their strawberries are teeny tiny!) and a flower plant to brighten the space. Tuesday was filled with an on-site orientation at EUSA’s office, an onboarding of cultural expectations, internship expectations, and housing expectations. We also received a tour of the UNYP (University of New York in Prague) library and access to the gym and pool. The welcome dinner was a great way to try traditional Czech and Eastern European foods and to talk with some new people!
On Wednesday, we had a walking tour of Prague where we went to Old Town and essentially followed the A metro line while walking. We were able to see the Old Town Square, Charles Bridge, the Astronomical Clock, as well as the old and new buildings, and my favorite part – The Gardens below Prague Castle. On Saturday, our program planned an excursion for us to Kutna Hora which is about an hour outside of Prague and is a historical site filled with old churches, monasteries, silver mines, and bones. We were able to visit St. Barbara’s Church, the Sedlec Ossuary (also known as the Bone Church), the Cathedral of Assumption, as well as the old silver mines that have since been shut down and the vineyards which respectively, used to and now support their economy. These historical sites were filled with art, architecture, and stories that have me in awe of Czechia. These sites are originally from the Gothic age in the 14th century and were overridden with Baroque architecture with the spread of Catholicism in the 17th century, now hailing as UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Now I am better able to recognize the intersections between history, the arts & architecture, and the economy/politics/culture/society of this country. Although the Czech Republic has not been an independent country for long (annexed from Czechoslovakia in 1992), they have a long and deep history throughout many different rulers and reichs and have survived through it all with resiliency, grit, and humor. I am grateful for this experience and I hope to be able to take these lessons with me wherever I go so that I can appreciate all that came before me and how I am able to be here today.
With Love,
Eliana Goodman