Blog Archive

My experience in the law firm “Scornik Gerstein LLP” had been really formative, helpful and good for my future. In these 2 months I increased many aspects and I learnd many new topic of different laws. This law firm works both with common law (uk law) and civil law (European law).

They give me many differents cases to solve with the right law to apply and finding the solution: I should search the applicable law in cases of civil law or commercial law. The staff supported me if I needed some further explications or some explanation. I revised and draft contracts, support the deployment of intellectual property and data protection legislation worldwide, draft notes etc.. I also took care of legal procedures regarding legalization, apostilles and notary affairs, support in the different departments of the office.

I improved my knowledges, skills (intellectual and practical): commercial awareness, communication skills, attention to details, time management, research and analysis etc…

Moreover I had weekly meetings with the Managing Partner to identify my practice and gave me guidance and advice where improvements could be made.

In conclusion, I can say that this traineeship has been really formative and helpful for my future job.!

Chiara Fantauzza, MA Student at University of Palermo

My Erasmus + traineeship in Bordeaux is a valuable experience for my future career and personal growth. I’ve spent 3 months in a Museum of Wine & Commerce in Bordeaux, working in an international team with multicultural public. My main responsibilities were to welcome tourists at the reception, explain them what to expect from the visit and make the presentation of the wine-producing zones of the region, followed by the tasting of 2 or 3 local wines. Sometimes I also made the guided tours of the exposition and the wine-tasting master-class with 5 wines and a detailed explanation (2h).

Thus I’ve learnt a lot about the region, it’s geography, climate, types of soil and grape varieties, local wine makers, wine merchants, wines and how to promote an area through its product. I’ve also acquired an expectedly good skill of public speaking, self-organization, responsibility and critical thinking. Sometimes, there were too many visitors (130 persons per day) and not enough employees to serve all (3 or 4), so I have experienced work under pressure and quite stressful overall conditions.

Working environment in the museum was very international. I collaborated with other trainees from all around the world and we had tourists from dozens different nations. It was an amazing experience of intercultural communication and co-operation. I’ve enhanced a lot my level of English, Italian and French, the official language of inner interaction at the workplace.

Together with the staff, we experienced several big events of the city, such as Vin Expo, Fête du Fleuve and Les Epicuriales festival, where we represented the museum. That was very useful in terms of organizational, planning skills, flexibility and it was quite fun. We also had numerous team activities, dinners, parties and spent a lot of post-work time together, which gave us an excellent team spirit.

However, in the end of the traineeship I started to realize that for the higher management of the museum we were not considered as rightful human beings but more as a free workforce. There was some inequality in treating the trainees, not based on their professional performance but on personal preferences. One thing I found quite incorrect is that at some point personal relations were affecting the working process.

Anyway, I found this experience incredibly useful for my future career. I have acquired a lot of practical skills and specific knowledge useful for the sector, I feel much more self-confident and I know what exactly I could do as a job. I have also learnt some strategies of touristic destination promotion through its products, which is very useful for my thesis. Furthermore, this traineeship has enlarged my personal and professional network that could definitely help me in finding a job in the future.

I would like to thank SEND for this opportunity and their staff for being always available, fast to respond and ready to help.

Ekaterina Ufimtseva, MA Student at University of Macerata.

I am Elisa Privitera, a Ph.D. student in Evaluation and Mitigation of Urban and Land Risks at the Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture at the University of Catania. In addition, I am a member of the LabPEAT, Laboratory for the Environmental and Ecological Design at the University of Catania (Italy).

As SEND Erasmus fellow, I had spent a period of research from 15th April 2019 to 15th July 2019 at the Environmental Humanities Laboratory (EHL) at the Division of History of Science, Technology, and Environment at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology of Stockholm. During this period my supervisor has been Prof. Marco Armiero and I have done the following educational, cultural and professional experiences:

– I have collaborated with the EHL for the daily activities of research, such as the lab meetings almost each Thursday, the CLISEL project and the Occupy Climate Change project. In particular, I have deepened a series of cases-study regarding the effect of the environmental change on the mobilization of population in the world. I have gathered and organized data, I have created map and file excell. Also, I have been the author of two case-studies for the GeoArchive of CLISEL project.

In particular I was author and co-author of the following cases study:

– Privitera, E. (2019). The contamination and transformation of landscapes in Gela, Sicily

– Xing, Y., Privitera, E. (2019). The ecological and social vulnerability of the Three Gorges resettlement area, China 1992–2012.

– I have been involved in the several ongoing activities carried out by the components of the Division, such as Higher Seminars. 

– Together with Marco Armiero, I have deepened the Toxic Bios project. Toxic Bios is a public environmental humanities project that aims to co-produce, gather, and make visible stories of contamination and resistance, by using the methodology of storytelling. In particular, these stories have been collected all over the world, especially in Europe and also in Brazil. In particular, I have done a literature review in order to explore and learn more about the topics of environmental justice, climate change, migration, and toxic autobiographies. By using a post-disciplinary approach, my aim has been to apply the Toxic Bios methodology to the urban and environmental planning field, with a specific application in contaminated areas due to the industrialization. Also, on the role of the Toxic Bios in the urban planning studies, together with Prof. Marco Armiero and Prof. Filippo Gravagno, we have written a paper titled “The Toxic Biographies and the “Small Data” from an Italian petrochemical town (Gela, Sicily)”. This paper has been presented during the City Futures IV Conference organized by EURA in Dublin from 20 to 22 June 2019 (http://cityfutures2019.com/).

In particular, on the 21st of June, I have presented the paper and I have received several interesting inputs, questions, and
comments on it. The paper has been already submitted to the Conference committee but it has not yet been published in the conference proceedings.

– I have written an article in English for the Division Blog on the research experience in Sweden.

Finally, it is consistent noting that that thanks to the SEND Erasmus programme the scientific relationship between the LabPEAT – Laboratory for the Ecological and Environmental Design at the University of Catania (Italy) and the Environmental Humanities Laboratory at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology of Stockholm have been strengthened.

Elisa Privitera, Ph.D. Student at University of Catania.