I started classes on September 9th. I’m taking 3 courses abroad to accompany my international internship. I’m taking International Economics, International Marketing, and Firenze Popolare (Florence Pop Culture, an upper-level Italian class instructed in Italian). My classes have covered similar topics. We talked about Hofstede’s dimensions in many lectures. We presented two group presentations comparing a European country to a non-European country and implementing a product from said European country to the non-European market dependent on the cultural dimensions. My internship this fall is with The Canadian School of Florence and I am the HR intern helping out the school’s HR manager. 

In my internship that I started on September 17th, I will focus on providing perspective to HR processes for the education system. So far, I’ve created proposals and implemented processes to streamline efficiency and reestablish structure to reporting employee needs to admin and the onboarding program for new faculty. I deliver translation needs to my team as I work on an Italian team and the teaching faculty is all English-speaking staff. For my internship I have to travel to the 3 schools through the week to be available for the staff. There are 2 locations in Fiesole and one location in Le Cure.

During my internship, I need to focus on adapting to the Italian work culture as well as communication and feedback loops to better understand the needs and processes of an organization here in Italy to successfully finish a meaningful experience at this internship. My top 5 Clifton strengths are adaptability, futuristic, positivity, woo and empathy. These are great strengths in harnessing understanding and sets me up to ease into the needs and asks from the internship and my team. My adaptability strength has made it easy thus far to pick up on new processes and implement them through my work. My Woo strength makes it easy for me to make meaningful connections with my coworkers. In Italy while doing business, Italians ask a lot of personal questions to establish a connection or find similarities. This transitions into one of the main differences I’ve noticed so far between the professional and academic cultures. The ‘lax’ or laid back culture. While I’m at my internship, I take coffee breaks and go to the Bar with my coworkers to get un caffè. Going to the Bar with my manager and colleagues gives us time to build up connections. I’m not sure if this is an Italian thing or a specific example from my internship’s organization, but everything isn’t as organized as I noticed in business and experience in America. I’m used to processes and databases to navigate important information, There is none of that here.

I’m excited to continue this internship as well as my classes for the remainder of the semester! My featured images for this post include some photos of the Tuscan countryside, in San Domenico/ Fiesole which is a 20 minute bus ride north of the city! I also included a photo of one of my lunches which was a panini at this small restaurant on my internship’s street!

A Presto,

Logan Skelly