As I’ve started my internship, I am able to reflect on the China Immersion Trip and recognize how developing a personal brand and visiting businesses in China has helped me develop as a professional. One thing that I struggled with in China was reflecting on the businesses we visited and the debrief helped me see that. In my first few days of my internship, we have done a lot of activities to teach us how to be a successful intern. After these activities we also do a debrief, I have been able to actively participate, contribute my thoughts and reflect because the China debrief taught me how to think about the key points of a discussion or office visit and also be conscious of small facts that caught my attention. I think I realized in China that taking notes is very important for me to grasp the main points, so I have made an effort to do that in my internship as well. One other large takeaway I have from China is recognizing how profound differences in business practices can be from eastern to western cultures. Hearing about how the Jamaican employee from BP had to use “guanxi” to book a keynote speaker for an International Women’s Conference was fascinating to me because the idea of having to connect through a chain of contacts versus just messaging someone on LinkedIn is so different.
I really enjoyed this trip. Shanghai was definitely my favorite city, I thought the architecture was incredible and the western influence made me feel a bit more comfortable versus some of the other cities. Additionally, I think it was a lot cleaner than some of the other cities. My favorite attractions we visited were the Great Wall and the Lion Garden, as well as taking a boat ride in the Water Town. I definitely recommend going back to all of those cities and potentially staying a night in the Water Town as well.
Something I struggled with on this trip was energy and I feel like it inhibited me from having a positive attitude at all times. I think one thing that could have helped this was differentiating the meals. Every planned meal we had generally had six to eight of the same dishes. I understand this might be the easiest for a large group or the most typical group meals in China, however, I feel like I was not able to fully experience China’s food culture by constantly eating the same things. I would have liked to have a dim sum dinner, a hot pot dinner, noodles and a dumpling dinner as well as trying some regional dishes. In Beijing, Pingyi and Jun kindly planned a dinner for us with traditional Northern Chinese dishes, like a dish with noodles and potatoes. This was my favorite meal because it was different than what we had experienced. Not eating the same meal for over ten times would have helped me have a positive attitude and be more energized during company visits.
Additionally, I felt the visits to the milk factory, retirement home, and wind farm were a bit forced to replace cancellations. The retirement home was nice, we definitely made some of them happy, but it was also a bit depressing. I would have preferred more time to explore on our own or sleep a bit more to be energized. Perhaps have one full day to relax from the corporate visits and explore on our own. Or it could be nice to poll students in BADM 199 and provide them options to vote on for cultural visits. Overall, I was impressed with how logistically sound this trip was.
Hoeft T&M Class 24: China Immersion 