Engineering & Business Internships in China with Mentoring

The heaviest ambition in mind after deciding to pursue a bachelors in finance was to work in a venture capital organization. And the ideal reason is to learn what goes into getting an organization prepared to source much funds at startup stage. This is consistent with my ambition of setting up multiple organizations internationally.
When it was time for my sandwich Year, I embarked on an internship Placement with CIP Platform in China. I did not think twice at all.
Leaving Manchester for Shanghai, I was full of hope and the expectations were great. As the hours drew near, I was filled with much anxiety. I finally left for China. The greatest experience so far with a properly combined Cultural Immersion and experience enhancement.
I arrived in China and as usual CIP Staff had to play their role. I am not supposed to be too appreciative of their services because I paid them to do this. I will rather discuss the experience.

MY concentration was on the experience and that was my prime concern. The Program Coordinator from CIP introduced me to my host supervisor on a Monday and that begun the process. My first impression was the WOW feeling. The company is located in the heart of Shanghai. The office over looked the “waitan of Shanghai” the bund which anyone who visits Shanghai must see else it is a no go. I virtually had this view anytime I raise my head looking through the fine blue tinctured glasses. The environment is so inspiring and the culture is more multi in nature. I met 7 other interns from CIP who had arrived before me.
I had 2 weeks to study the company and my department as well as roles associated with my office. I was responsible to perform due diligence on possible business investments and acquisitions. I spend my mornings combing through corporate records and archives, financial statements. I am part of the team that probe target organizations and ask questions as well as talk to people at all levels in an organization. Aside working as a group, my supervisor asks me to submit final Reports of corporate evaluations on organizations by performing tasks to formulate an informed decisions. The reports will be my opinion whether businesses show enough potential profitability to warrant investing. I always submit my report even before the group’s recommendations. Though tough, it has been the right approach to shaping my experience.
As usual, Venture capital firms often require a seat on the board of directors of an organization in which they invest and I accompany some of the senior Executives to these board meetings and the insight were awesome. I have been to serious meetings and the mode of conduct and decision making is awesome.
How did this Help Me?
In the first place, my mission was accomplished, and I am sure to lead any organization in the area of venture capital and Business Acceleration. I could start up a business from the scratch as a venture capitalist or know how to woo business investors to my business venture. But the most important is that I have what it takes to start up my own business in China. This is why I am going back to China After 8 months.
One word for China Internship Placements’ Program - Awesome :)

I am happy that CIP rescued me from a mission impossible agency which promised heavens. It is mandatory for many young people to gain some experience before venturing the job market but there are several issues that every prospective intern needed to deal with prior to going abroad for an Internship. I made a serious mistake that cost me so much but I am happy CIP stood for me even though I rejected them in the first instance during the preliminary stages.
I selected an Internship Agency which offered me a placement in Shanghai into the area of International Business. They looked big enough and took huge fees but the reality is that they are disorganized than ever. As per the offer, I was supposed to intern with a fortune 500 organization. Upon arrival, I was told the organization rejected me which I think was strange. I gathered patience enough to see what the alternative arrangement will be. After waiting for 4 weeks, I was surprised with a Placement with a start up with 5 staff members who do not even know their reason for forming the organization. I was supposed to assist them develop their international market strategy. They never spoke English hence communication was tough and the rest is history. I asked for a refund and some stories were told to my face.
I contacted CIP again and they were more than willing to help the situation. I just had to maintain my apartment and pay few fees and then I was sorted out with a Placement into Lehman Brown. They are into Accounting, Tax and Management advisory services. My responsibilities were to assist Overseas Operations Department research about Environmental Factors in the US prior to going abroad. This I will say came with much responsibilities and expectations which made me nervous and I confessed to my Placement Director as well as internship Coordinator. But their experiences and advice kept me going. I had a supervisor who was firm on me all the time and made sure I did it right.
After 3 weeks, I was in shape and begun to deliver my best there, I noticed the best was yet to come. My stipend also increased with time as I was working part times and over time duties. The joy and satisfaction came from the fact that my efforts never went unnoticed. I had traveled to Qingdao and Beijing for business trips and dined with the best of Business Executives and CEOs of some giant Chinese companies looking to go abroad.
CIP staff was on point and responded anytime I needed them. They have the logistics to handle much pressure. I was in China when they had about 115 interns in Shanghai and the beauty is that each of them was treated with utmost respect.
For $300, I was allocated to a career expert who taught me the rudiments of launching my carrier online and the art of marketing my skills, blogging and resume construction. This has been so helpful as I am able to write my daily experiences and gained followers who always read my pieces and advise me.
In short, I never knew my sad story could end up with a 360 degree turn around.
I learnt of reviews for CIP this morning and I thought it is a great opportunity to let others know about them. Their services are reasonable and their values are intact.

"CIP provides mentoring and Grooming and it is an awesome experience Go for it"
I decided to Intern Abroad and was sure China is to be my destination. I will share here why I selected China Internship Placements and the hard work I had to do just for this. I first googled the keyword Internship in China which returned so much program providers which CIP never surfaced but after I flipped till 6th page of google. I was confused initially but I sorted out my confusion. For the records, I applied to 8 [eight] Internship programs and painstakingly went through the procedure to know what’s right. I later resort to reviews for validation but I noticed most online reviews of most internship providers were faked!! 100% fake and it was obvious. Even a lame person could get this.
The real deal here is that I had to attend eight interviews  so sad huh! What set CIP apart is that their interview is conducted by their Placement Directors. These directors are in charge of placing applicants into the Internship companies and are Ex-HR personnel. They asked the right questions and test for the right skills, the concentration here is my future goals and aspirations. I did not hear any marketing pitch in the Interview. To me, this is how it should be and not an hour telling speaking about why a program is superior or not.

The rest of the process went alright till arrived in China.
My task was to prepare preliminary Business Asset valuations for Mergers and Acquisitions and as usual, this was not that simple as I thought. The company had its own processes and established standards for going about this. With a week of training and good supervisor, I was able to cross the hurdle. Haven done this for 4 months, I moved onto a different role. After being able to speak some Chinese because I was taking Chinese language classes, I decided to practice professionally by performing a role that made me speak or write Mandarin every day. I was placed in a department that does research by combining and comparing Business Annual reports in order to prepare industry highlights and growth of China’s various business sectors.
The Bulletin was released annually and are to be prepared in English and later translated into Chinese, Korean and Japanese languages. The challenges were real but the team managed to meet all deadlines.
I can read and write very good Chinese language just over 10 months because for 6 months, I was translating and reading materials, combining and extracting figures from sources other than English.
I had gained so much insight into various sectors of Chinese economy especially with history of growth and trajectory of events. To me my arguments and discussions about Chinese economy is now solid. I deeply understand the operations of Chinese stock exchange and how they differ from other countries as well as loopholes in the system.

Overall, the experience was great and the people were awesome. I made a trip to Dalian, Shenzhen, Qingdao, Hebei, Nanjing and Fuzhou. Experiences I will never forget as those moments with other interns were fun. I don’t want to launch my career in China but I think I will be back for Business.

CIP always reminds us that they are not perfect but they always try their utmost best to serve us and I agree to that. Since they did not promise me heaven, I will say they were at their best. Try them if you are looking to Intern or study in China.