UIBE Quizhen Building
On this past Tuesday, November 27th, TBC brought together the Beijing expat and young professionals community along with host organizations to discuss the significance and characteristics of a successful internship program and celebrate the achievements of TBC student interns at our semester internship showcase.
To begin the evening, our wonderful panelists coming from both startup companies and well establish international corporations shared their insight on what an internship is and what it is not. Joining us were speakers: Jimmy Chan from Deloitte, Tim Chen from Mobike, W. Chad Futrell from Schwarzman Scholars – Tsinghua, Meg Rudy from Philanthropy in Motion (PIM), and the panel moderator, Alicia Noel from CET.
Our moderator, Alicia, started out by asking questions to the attendees to tailor the panel content to the audience demographic. In accordance with the diverse audience, W. Chad Futrell stated that students should take the initiative to go to the chamber of commerce of their respective countries and go to events with a friend in order to find job opportunities. As he mentioned, “it is possible for startups to engage in a conversation with a student on a Friday, and have him/her work at the company the following Monday.” W. Chad Futrell also added that startups were mostly looking for proactive interns, as he explained “supervisors should not tell the students what to do, but the interns should ask what he/she should be doing”. Additionally, interns should be specific about the feedback they are looking for and instead of asking “how am I doing?”, asking “how are my skills in this specific sector, how can I improve them”
As opposed to startup companies, Jimmy Chan explained that in well-established international firms such as Deloitte, there is a more intensive and structured recruiting season. As he mentioned “internships are for students, jobs are for graduated students.” So people who are still studying should take this opportunity to intern. He also explained that what companies like Deloitte appreciate about interns are their energy as well as their initiatives.
Meg Rudy added on by saying how she “loves hiring TBC interns as they are self-aware”, she mentioned that because the students were enrolled in an internship course, they were able to reflect on their experience, and therefore make more meaning of their internship and understand what they want.
According to Tim Chen, interns must also know how to acknowledge and respond in a professional way to negative feedbacks. As he said, “there is not an easy way to take negative feedback, but interns must get used to it as a working professional in the field”.
After the discussion was a short break followed by the internship showcase, where each student stood next to a poster display of their own design and talked to fellow professionals and peers about their experience at their host company.
TBC has partnered with companies across industries in Beijing, including the US Embassy, United Family Hospital, Edelman, Carnegie Tsinghua Center, etc. to provide TBC students with opportunities to build up their professional experience. As students shared their experience working at their respective host companies, they also made connections with their fellow professionals while enjoying delicious tacos prepared by Palms LA.
If you’d like to download any photos from the event, click here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/N4DmH64G6mBcNjk58
The past few weekends have been some of the most exciting of the entire semester, full of trips to the zoo, mountain hikes, ancient parks, and more! Our first trip out of many was a visit to the Beijing Zoo. I had mentioned earlier in the semester that I wanted to see some pandas, since I was in China after all, and our TBC friend Andy made it happen.
Spending a whole semester in Beijing, I knew I had to make the trip down south and check out Shanghai, and the city certainly lived up to the expectations. Everyone describes Shanghai as this super futuristic metropolis, and after spending a weekend there I understand why it has this reputation.