03 Dec Shanghai has as many people as the entire population of Australia
Hi everyone, my name’s Kaiwen and I’m from Perth, Australia. I’m studying a double degree in Commerce and Economics at the University of Western Australia and recently completely my third year. In a few weeks I’ll be hopping on a plane, and heading to Shanghai for an internship with an asset management firm. It’s a very exciting opportunity and in this blog post I’ll be outlining some of my expectations for the Shanghai Internship Program by Absolute Internship.
I think my Shanghai internship will be a valuable opportunity to gain some practical experience working in finance and apply what I’ve learnt at uni to a real world context. Interning in finance will allow me develop a range of important skills such as financial analysis, problem solving and communication that I think it will be a strong complement with my previous experiences working in accounting. I expect that it will be a busy month during my internship. After all, finance does have a reputation of being a very intensive industry when it comes to work life, however I think it will be a great opportunity for me to challenge myself. The firm I’ll be interning at also provides services in the field of M&A advisory, which is an area I’m particularly interested. Being involved in this sort of work is something I’m really looking forward to. I think it’ll also be interesting comparing the similarities and differences in working culture between Australia and China and I hope to learn more about the business culture of China.
While the internship itself is a big part of the experience I’m also looking forward to the experience of living in China. I was actually born in China but moved to New Zealand when I was 3. While I’ve visited China a few times since then this will be the first time I’ve stayed here for an extended period of time and it will also be the first time I’ve visited without my parents. I expect the language barrier to be a biggest challenge. While I can speak Mandarin, I wouldn’t say I’m fluent in the language and I’m pretty much literate when it comes to reading and writing Mandarin so it’s definitely going to take a while to get used to everything. While I expect it will be challenging it also provides the ideal opportunity to improve my language skills. I think one thing that will make it easier is that the internship will be based in Shanghai which is probably the most internationalised city in China and where English is likely to be most prevalent.
Speaking of Shanghai, getting to stay in such a large city is also very exciting. Shanghai is a huge place compared the cities that I’ve lived in. It’s pretty amazing to think the city has as many people as the entire population of Australia, all those people in one city. Being such a big city, I expect there is going to be a lot to see. The sight I’m expecting to be most wowed by is the Pudong skyline, I’ve attached a photo of it with this blog post and I’m hoping the view will be just as great in real life. Only a few decades ago there wasn’t a single skyscraper on that island and now it’s such an iconic cityscape. It really shows how fast the city has developed. I’m also looking forward to experience the vibe of the city, people have called Shanghai the Manhattan of the East and it’s exciting to get the opportunity to live in a city that’s always in motion. It’s definitely going to be a big contrast to Perth which has a bit of a reputation of being a ghost town after 5pm. I think it’ll be great living in Shanghai knowing there’s always something to do.
Well that sums up my expectations for the program, I’ll be writing more once I arrive in Shanghai. I’m looking forward sharing my experience of the Absolute internship program here!
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