Local Chinese Company Internship

Position and Tasks, Relevance to the studies

I did a 6 month long internship in Shanghai based in one of the most well known travel agencies.  My internship position as a marketing analyst was to assist the company with their marketing online. So most of the time I looked at websites for exchange links, send emails to other travel companies and write information for the website in English and Spanish.  This helped me to not only practice my English but to also use my native tongue Spanish to good use.  In addition, my supervisor would take me along to many networking events where potential clients would be present. My internship assignments were extremely relevant to my previous academic course and interests as I have previously studied marketing at university. So I had knowledge of the theoretical aspect of marketing such as marketing strategies but I had never actually used the concepts of marketing such as marketing online before.   Hence, my internship helped me to improve the knowledge that I had already acquired about marketing.  I had regular supervision from my supervisor; he would break down the tasks and assignments I would have to do for that certain week or month, which I found really useful and helpful.  My supervisor was extremely helpful and really nice.  As I mostly worked on my own tasks which were different to that of the other staff I usually just asked Michael if I had any questions as he was the person who would assign me my tasks.

Main Learning Points

The work experience abroad provided me with a valuable experience for my future career. Even though I have background knowledge on marketing I have never been trained on how to actually advertise for a certain company online, as most my tasks were linked to online marketing for the company.  Therefore, I feel that this internship really helped me to improve my knowledge and skills in marketing. Although I gained new knowledge and skills, I also realized that I have fairly good time management skills as I always finished the tasks that my supervisor gave me on time.  Doing this internship as well I think helped me time manage my work life from my social life better.   I also found that I can adapt to a new culture much better than I thought I would, as most my colleagues were Chinese and I only speak a basic level of Chinese so I thought that it was going to be hard but instead it really made me learn about the Chinese Culture.   I would most definitely recommend this company to other interns as I have learnt a lot from it so far and I am only half way into my internship! Also all my colleagues are really nice so there is always a friendly atmosphere in the office.  I further recommend that future interns choose a marketing based internship as I’ve found it to be a really useful tool to know if you want to go into a business orientated job in the future.  In my office there was only one other colleague was foreign, the rest were all Chinese.  However, this did not really make much of a difference as a lot of my tasks assigned to me by my supervisor only involved me, as I worked most of the time independently.

Food, Transportation and Visa

Near my internship there are a number of traditional local Chinese restaurants which are really convenient and cheap. I mostly ate there with my colleagues at lunchtime as you can get noodles for 5 Yuan and they’re really tasty!  However, if some days I felt like western food there is a MacDonald’s and a KFC located close to my office too. Shanghai is really easy to get around. Every day I take the metro to work as its really fast and easy, as well as the office is only situated 10 minutes by foot from the Metro Station.  Whilst in Shanghai I did not spend a lot monthly on transportation as the metro and bus routes are so cheap and frequent. I usually spent 150 RMB per month on transportation costs.  I also did not spend that much on food monthly as lunchtimes I ate locally and in the evenings I normally cooked in my apartment.  I would say you could easily survive with 600RMB a month for food if you eat in local Chinese restaurants. My accommodation was 2,700 RMB per month which was worth every penny as it was really close proximity to my internship company and in the centre of Shanghai near all the big shopping malls and club streets. I found the fact that BESTEP helps you sort out your visa really useful as it can be a really complicated matter but everything was taken care of for me and I was told which visa to apply for and so on. I got given an ‘F’ Visa for 3 months, which is a business visa.  Then, I was able re-newed my visa whilst in Shanghai for another 3 months in the Pudong office.

Melina (24), Columbian

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