My journey in China, 6 months, 2 internships.

Hello, my name is Margaux, I am a double degree student, I studied for one year at Jamk. Thanks to my home country program, this year is dedicated to internships. I have to do two practical training of 4 to 6 months each.

After struggling to find my first internship, I had to options, either going to London for an internship in Finance or going to China for an internship in an Import Company as a Sales & Procurement intern. I was eager to learn new things, go to a different environment and I never experienced Asia before so I decided to join the Chinese one, which would have given me more responsibilities on the paper.

The Chinese company is an imported commodity wholesale complex integrating leisure, tourism, shopping, art, and exhibition.
When I arrived in this company in February, I was surprised to see that most of the project was still under construction, only a small part of the project was open to the public: a supermarket and 3 to 5 small shops for imported “luxury” clothing.

Unfortunately, I was not assigned to any relevant tasks or missions, I was promised to work within the sales and sourcing team while there was none of that within the company’s organization. Nobody was taking care of the 3 interns in the company, we were doing labor work in poor work conditions and we knew there was no way for us to improve the situation, so I started looking for another internship along with the other interns.

But still, through this internship, I could experience what it was like to live in the countryside of China as the company was located 80 km from Shanghai, I was totally out of my comfort zone, the main challenge being the language barrier.

Thanks to the help of a friend and classmate, I could change my internship after a bit more than 1 month.
I joined a French company in another city, also not far from Shanghai. It is specializing in the medical industry and I joined the Customer Service Team.

When I joined the company, I was surprised to see that there were only 6 people working in the office. It was a small team, a small office as well but it actually better to learn about their jobs and get closer to my colleagues.

My job was to ensure the processing of customer orders as well as their financial aspects as quality or logistics. Coordinate the interface between customers, sales and functional departments of the plant to ensure service quality objectives of the company
I was happy I could be quickly efficient, with the company’s software and I could deal with order on my own thanks to efficient training during the first week.

Also working closely with the Asia Chief Officer of the company gave me many insights on professional matters. I was able to participate in team meetings and even organize them once a week. I was also able to attend one very important exhibition in Shanghai with not only the China team but French and Asia one also.

I am really enjoying my time in China and I am considering doing my second internship also in Asia. I believe I made the right decision in changing my internship to enjoy my expatriation, gain knowledge. I am very thankful that I could learn a lot from both my experiences even if it was a struggle for me at the beginning, it allowed me to grow and learn from it.