Intern in China for a Semester or Year

I gave tours and rewrote the transcript for the English audio tour.

I found the autonomy given to me during my internship was particularly surprising. Overall I loved it. I would say my biggest take away would be learning how to make effective use of the time and resources given to me in order to do something meaningful while being given no directions. It was a really good experience and I learned a lot.

I still have a lot to learn but I feel like this internship definitely has pushed me to continue studying with a focus on China. Due to globalization The United States and China will continue to interact increasingly more in the future and any good relationship should come from a place of understanding. I will be doing another internship through TBC next spring and then when I return to the U.S. I’m thinking of hopefully tutoring and applying for CURL. I really love education and can’t express how important I think it is.

When I came into the office one day my supervisor was sleeping in a makeshift bed she made out of a lawn chair and blankets she brought in. -I learned that afternoon naps are common in the Chinese workplace.

My primary job at Edelman was to proofread daily publications and memos that were translated from Chinese to English. Being a native speaker, I was able to take rough translations and polish them into formal business communications. Learning Chinese helped me understand the thought processes used when translating Chinese to English. I also helped research topics on English sites and draft articles for WeChat and Weibo.

Working in a Chinese environment exposed me to Chinese business culture and taught me proper business communications. Because Edelman is an international company, I practiced internal business communications with Chinese coworkers as well as external
communications with people from all over the globe. Surprisingly, I actually improved my English writing skills in addition to my Chinese conversational skills.

While I don’t see PR in my future, Edelman has prepared me for all aspects of business in China. I know in the future I want to work either with China, or in China, and this experience provided me with the necessary skills to pursue this goal.

Our office was almost entirely young, Chinese women, so it was interesting to hear them speak about Chinese pop culture and current events. Being a US company in China, it was a very progressive environment that allowed employees to wear whatever and discuss whatever.

My primary job at the US Embassy was to work closely with the healthcare team. I had to create industry snapshot iconographic for any industry pertaining to healthcare. I was lucky enough to attend many client meetings and to see first hand how the negotiations are. Also, I led the weekly reporting on the work of all consulates in China and Mongolia.

My internship gave me the reassurance I needed to pursue a career in either international trade or diplomacy. I’ve learned how to effectively manage my time while working on a variety of projects simultaneously. I’ve also improved my teamwork skills when I had to collaborate with more than a dozen officers to work on updating the CS China Country Overview PPT.

Going forward I feel more confident in my abilities and have a sense of clarity about what I would like to do in the future. I know for a fact that a career in international trade or diplomacy is a right fit for me. This internship made me realize that if I really set my mind to do something I can definitely accomplish it. I’m extremely grateful for the wonderful opportunity that was given to me and helped me grow both personally and professionally.

I loved coming to the internship because the people who worked with me combined the best from two cultures. They were always professional, but they didn’t treat me as a subordinate and always find the time to just talk. They were always willing to help and they genuinely appreciated everything that I did. Although I was in a foreign country working with many people from all over China and US they made it feel like home and I will miss them greatly.

My primary jobs as a Communications Intern at Project Pengyou were blog post writing and social media management. My bosses did add other projects to our semester-wide tasks a few months into the internship. These varied per intern based upon our interests and desires for our experience.

I feel that I have taken so much from my time at Project Pengyou, from my time learning and working in China. With its expanding market, there is a myriad of opportunities in just Beijing alone for someone seeking to establish a career in business marketing management like me.

I learned that I am still interested in working in the non-profit world. However, I learned that this sector is very unstable and might not be a viable path for establishing a strong career in Marketing. Nonetheless, I have learned that Beijing holds many great opportunities both for social organizations like Project Pengyou as well as businesses.

We worked with one Chinese national and it made comparing her work ethic to ours easy and interesting.

My primary job at the WHO was to support my supervisor in health financing research. Specifically, my assignment was to build a database of diseases in China and try to crunch the numbers in an Excel document to find the true cost of various diseases in China, and the burden they imposed on the people and the government.

More than anything I learned how to work in an international environment with people from all walks of life and cultural backgrounds. I feel stronger communicating in Chinese and French (the 2nd and 3rd languages of the office) and feeling comfortable asking coworkers for help even if it’s not in English. Above all though it was refreshing to feel like the work I was doing really had an impact. There is a good chance my work will be used in a brief to the Chinese government on where resources should be shifted in the future, and that alone makes the job worth it.

I have always had a commitment to public service so the World Health Organization seemed like the logical next step for me, an experience that confirmed what I already knew about my career goals. In February 2017 I will start work for the Peace Corps as a business advising extension agent in Senegal, and my time with the WHO no doubt prepared me for that job.

Our office was about 50% Chinese 50% foreign, so it maintained a Western feel while at the same time being decidedly Chinese. The biggest differences were the hours, most people came to work late and stayed late, and the 服务员, or in-office maids. Both of these differences created a much different feel from a normal “western” office environment, but it was a welcome change as it was easier for everyone to focus on work rather than getting in at 8am sharp or washing the pile of dishes in the kitchen.

My primary function at the Foreign Commercial Service was the support my commanding FCS officers with their tasks and policy goals. I personally worked with AOWG American One Belt, One Road Working Group conducting BRI research in Mongolia and Indonesia. The group looked for opportunities in these particular markets.

The main project I worked on was the economic, geopolitical, and security implications of the Belt and Road Initiative. This helped to improve my research skills, writing skills, briefing skills, among others. I developed a keen interest in economic and strategic research in this internship.

This internship was a mature and professional approach to career development. Going forward, my interests are solidified toward global economic and strategic research.

China has been an excellent opportunity to learn about the Belt and Road Initiative. In honesty, I would not have unlocked the current interests that I hold without the influence of my internship experience.

My job holds a variety of tasks. I do research on the policies that China drafts and I assist in writing the policy papers and we send those papers to the chamber of commerce in the U.S. I also assist in putting on events. I create the event pages, invite members to attend, and sometimes if necessary I host the event. Basically, if the office needs anything they delegate it to the interns.

I learned a lot about how to work and navigate an office setting that works on an international level. It was perfectly what I wanted in an internship abroad. I felt like I made a difference and an actual impact with the work that I did. Working at Amcham even gave me the opportunity to write a story that gets to be featured in our magazine Business Now.

I feel that this has helped me become a lot more secure in my career path, I feel like I have found something that I can potentially do in life and be satisfied with doing it.

I was very surprised with how easy it was for me to transition into an office that spoke a multitude of languages. We all try to learn from one another and stay in the same page, but it was easier than I thought.

My primary job at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing under the Foreign Commercial Service is to provide assistance to all commercial service officers so as to promote U.S. interests and increase exports to the Chinese market. My job included tasks of writing reports for the Ambassador or researching market intelligence to be used in various projects for U.S. sellers seeking entrance into the Chinese market.

More than anything I gained insight on international business and what a major exactly entails within a global environment. As for projects, worked on automotive research, SelectUSA Investment and E-commerce platforms in China. From these projects, I improved on my research consolidation skills and how to adapt to a constantly changing environment. From
meetings with experts and clients, I also gained insight on how to conduct business talks.

From this internship, I learned that I want to continue doing this line of work in the near future. It may not be exactly working at the Embassy, but I do want to do something within the International trade realm between China and the U.S. Gaining insight on international business from a government
perspective has definitely created a solid foundation on which I can build my career on.

Working at such an institution during impending trade wars was probably the most unique moment for me. The fact that my work and research directly related to events happening with my affiliated countries was super interesting to see. I experienced first-hand how trade wars and tariffs affected both Chinese and American companies.

Startups require each team member to wear multiple hats. I helped to organize networking events, matched employers with prospective candidates, and even hosted a podcast! So many things I’d never thought I’d be able to do, I did!

In a couple of words, I have become a stronger leader and more aware of the necessity of cultural competency. The mentorship of my boss, the founder, made the biggest impact on me this semester. Samantha didn’t give me time to be nervous, she just said “go do it” with full confidence in me, because she placed so much trust in me, I had to trust myself.  

I originally studied Political Science with the intention of pursuing a career in education policy, but after interning in this type of work, I felt very frustrated with hierarchy and bureaucracy. Interning at JingJobs showed me the flexibility and excitement of working for a startup. I have a clearer vision of my future in business and how I can still incorporate education in regards to cultural competency.

Small things that I’d never known if I hadn’t worked in a Chinese office- such as co-workers always drinking hot water and taking naps after lunch.