Program Reviews

I cannot say enough great things about the time I spent in Manchester, England. There is nothing that I would change about the quality of my internship placement, the support I received from CRCC Asia, friends that I made while abroad, and the amazing city that I got to explore. Manchester, England will always hold a special place in my heart and I hope to return and hopefully move to permanently someday! My internship was at a mental health charity where I focused on their social media, updating their website and creating a communication strategy.

I had the opportunity to attend two back-to-back internships in the UK. One was during the summer of 2018 with the help of another internship company and last summer of 2019 with CRCC Asia. While both were vastly different in both location and work environments I truly felt more taken care of with CRCC Asia. Everything from the process of obtaining a visa to being picked up at the airport, to receiving a fun weekly itinerary was very smooth and was provided seamlessly in advance. Once settled in the CRCC team quickly accommodated all of the interns (which have now become some of my best friends) into our living quarters and gave us a very well informed orientation of Manchester such as awesome tourist attractions and even some of the city's best-kept secrets. With an inspiring weekly commute through the city center, I took every opportunity I could to walk on foot and explore Manchester's industrialized historic parts as well as it's surrounding modern campus university. As for the internship itself, I have a great time exploring the corporate world of the fashion industry and was able to work directly under my supervisor who was the CEO where I was able to gain an incredible amount of knowledge that I would have definitely struggled to obtain anywhere else. One key takeaway that I learned while in Manchester without sounding too cliche is to really make the most out of every opportunity because it will be over before you know it.

My internship experience with EMERGE last summer is one of the best experience I have ever had in my life! As a project intern with EMERGE, I engaged with two vital development issues: environmental sustainability and food security. At EMERGE Recycling, I designed and conducted customer satisfaction surveys for over 400 clients in order to assess confidential paper shredding and waste collection services, thereby bringing about better resource management and promoting 3Rs (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle) within the wider community. I also collaborated with colleagues at FareShare Greater Manchester (part of EMERGE) on their community food redistribution initiative to tackle food waste and food poverty in and around Manchester.

Spending the summer interning in Seoul was an unforgettable experience! The CRCC Asia staff were very helpful and supportive before, during, and after the program ended providing us with helpful tips, a variety of cultural tours and experiences, along with opportunities to network with locals. I had gotten a great internship as well which allowed me to explore Seoul and many other cities in South Korea, which was excellent. My coworkers were nice and helpful, and I felt a lot of growth during my time working.

Arriving in Seoul was a breeze as the staff were helpful, provided a great presentation and could answer many questions. On the second day we had received our sim cards which were extremely helpful. One of the apps I recommend downloading to get around Seoul and other cities in South Korea is Naver Maps. One of the best parts of Seoul is the transportation system where you could get around the city for a low price on buses and the subway system. The food is Seoul is also excellent and cheap, there are so many places to shop in local markets, malls, and cultural areas. Don’t limit yourself to Seoul too much as there are other cities to go to and many cultural festivals and events throughout Korea. Purchasing bullet train tickets and bus tickets to travel to other cities are simple as well. I highly recommend this the Seoul Internship Program because it has made a lasting impact on me and there is always something great to do!

Before catching my flight to Tokyo I had no idea what I was going to go through.
I was worried about being in a completely different country all by myself, having to do a job I knew nothing about.
It turned out that my worries were useless.
From the day I arrived I never felt lonely: I immediately met the other interns (coming from different parts of the world) and our friendly and young supervisor. We organized interesting visits, delicious lunches, dinners, and events; we shared our experiences, personal stories and feelings.
Even if just for one month, I feel like I have grown so much after this experience.
I felt emotions I didn't know I could feel, ate great food, made new friends and explored a completely new culture.
Thanks to the internship I have more clear in mind what field I would like to work in in the future and finding a job doesn't scare me anymore.
I highly recommend this experience to anyone: for professional, but mostly, for personal growth. Going back, I would with no hesitation make this choice again.
Ganbare!

If you’re looking for an opportunity to pack up and leave to live and work somewhere else, the CRCC program is a great choice. Shanghai is a great location if you’re looking for the familiarities of home as well as authentic Chinese food and people. Living and working in China for an extended period of time can be very hard to organise yourself, so having CRCC to guide and navigate the process really helped. My only criticism of the program is that there is very little involvement from the intern in where you work (despite the industry selection).

Great opportunity to gain working experience in Asia. The business seminars really help and the mandarin lessons are a plus! This internship is truly what you make of it, the more effort and enthusiasm you put in your work, the more productive you feel. Please don't forget to travel, since you travelled all the way to China! My recommendations are Huangshan for hiking and Hangzhou if you go there make sure you visit Longjin Village. This village has great tea and beautiful sceneries. Best places!

I had an amazing and unforgettable time in China. I was able to gain priceless experience in a professional work environment while also immersing myself into Chinese culture. This is truly a once in a lifetime opportunity to live and work abroad and it will have a great impact on your professional and personal development. The CRCC team were extremely helpful from Day 1 and I felt comfortable and safe knowing they were there to support me at work and at home. I would definitely recommend this program to anyone considering it.

Initially, I applied to the CRCC internship scheme as I wanted to improve my employability. Graduate jobs in the UK can be so competitive and so I was looking to gain unique experience abroad that would help my CV stand out amongst the rest; demonstrating global networks is particularly important in today’s globalised world. I thought that an internship would be a really good opportunity to get a flavour for the media industry, as well as gain valuable hands-on experience, better preparing me for what to expect for media-related roles back in London. I would say that the internship met and exceeded my expectations in this respect.

Whilst working for Shanghai Family magazine, I was kept extremely busy by my supervisor almost every day. My tasks involved editing content on Adobe InCopy to cut down on words and check that grammar, spelling and information was correct, as well as improving the articles for them to read well. I also wrote my own content for both the company’s WeChat subscription page and the cover story of the magazine. I found it super rewarding to see my name printed in a magazine as ‘Assistant Editor’! Of course, there were some challenges at times, such as juggling my own deadlines, being thrown numerous different tasks that were to be done quickly and efficiently, but I found that I thrived more from being busy at work than when work was a bit slow. I learnt to write to a standard I was proud of in much shorter time frames. I attended events, represented the magazine and mingled with the expat community in Shanghai. However, one regret is not integrating more with my Chinese colleagues, which perhaps would have aided a more authentic China experience.

Nonetheless, I found living in China to be an exciting challenge. The language was way more of an obstacle than I imagined it would be (which, in hindsight, was perhaps a bit naive of me), but luckily, my supervisor was native British and so the language barrier was not too apparent in the workplace, and more when it came to weekend trips away. Difficulties such as VPNs and menus entirely in Chinese were still apparent despite Shanghai being more cosmopolitan and ‘Western’ in comparison to the rest of China. I liked that traditional Chinese culture was easy to find, even just in the local park on my walk to work every morning.

I really gained a lot from the experience in China. I learnt that I am pretty resilient person, and I proved to myself that I am capable of thriving, professionally and personally, whilst being completely out of my comfort zone. I was genuinely surprised at just how strong my support network was whilst I was in Shanghai. I feel as though made friends for life through the CRCC scheme and I am extremely grateful for the experience.

China is an incredibly vast country, with such a distinct culture, I feel like I barely scratched the surface - 7 weeks is such a short amount of time! Although I have no immediate plans to return as of yet, I am sure that I will return to China in the future. Going forward, I feel more confident to seek work both abroad and within the media industry.

Great program. Would definitely recommend. Development so much personally and professional, and got to learn so much about the Chinese culture. Very happy with the accommodation provided, my host company and support given by the Shanghai team will out in China.
Some achievements and highlights include seeing pandas for the first time, as they are indanged and so rare to see, learning Mandarin as I've always wanted to learn the language, experiencing Shanghai's TeamLab, being able to take part in the calligraphy and dumplings making classes, and making friendships that will last a lifetime. A number or things I did while undertaking the internship included; transcribing documents and websites from automated Chinese to English to correct English, watching over interviews and pick out the best parts, help editing interviews , helping write blogs, leaflets and updating the companies website, and helping organise events. I was very happy with my placement, and was so glad I got to work along side a very supportive team. Cant thank the British Council and CRCC enough for giving me this opportunity to take part in such a life changing program.