Internships in Shanghai, China

After studying Mandarin for ten years, moving to Shanghai felt like turning years of learning into real life. Suddenly, the language I had studied in classrooms became the language I used every day: to work, connect with people and truly experience China from within. My internship challenged me professionally, while living on the other side of the world pushed me to become more independent, adaptable and confident. Knowing Mandarin helped me overcome cultural barriers and made every interaction more meaningful, from the workplace to everyday life and travelling across China. I went to Shanghai looking for international experience in one of the countries I love most, but I came back with something much bigger: the feeling that ten years of studying had finally found their purpose. China was no longer something I had learned about—it became a part of my story. Choosing just one photo to represent this experience almost feels impossible—two months in China gave me far too many places, people and memories worth capturing in a single frame.

After studying Mandarin for ten years, moving to Shanghai felt like turning years of learning into real life. Suddenly, the language I had studied in classrooms became the language I used every day: to work, connect with people and truly experience China from within. My internship challenged me professionally, while living on the other side of the world pushed me to become more independent, adaptable and confident. Knowing Mandarin helped me overcome cultural barriers and made every interaction more meaningful, from the workplace to everyday life and travelling across China. I went to Shanghai looking for international experience in one of the countries I love most, but I came back with something much bigger: the feeling that ten years of studying had finally found their purpose. China was no longer something I had learned about—it became a part of my story. Choosing just one photo to represent this experience almost feels impossible—two months in China gave me far too many places, people and memories worth capturing in a single frame.

After studying Mandarin for ten years, moving to Shanghai felt like turning years of learning into real life. Suddenly, the language I had studied in classrooms became the language I used every day: to work, connect with people and truly experience China from within. My internship challenged me professionally, while living on the other side of the world pushed me to become more independent, adaptable and confident. Knowing Mandarin helped me overcome cultural barriers and made every interaction more meaningful, from the workplace to everyday life and travelling across China. I went to Shanghai looking for international experience in one of the countries I love most, but I came back with something much bigger: the feeling that ten years of studying had finally found their purpose. China was no longer something I had learned about—it became a part of my story. Choosing just one photo to represent this experience almost feels impossible—two months in China gave me far too many places, people and memories worth capturing in a single frame.

During my summer internship in Shanghai with Absolute Internship, I had the opportunity to work at Knudsen & CRC, a consulting firm helping international brands grow in the Chinese market. My main project focused on launching a cruelty-free cosmetics campaign, where I designed a 24-question consumer survey, conducted 88 street interviews, and analyzed insights to guide our strategy. I also collaborated on cross-cultural projects, such as Halal certification research and market behavior analysis on Douyin and Little Red Book. This experience not only strengthened my ability to work in a fast-paced, multicultural environment but also gave me real-world exposure to market research, campaign strategy, and client presentation development. Living and working in Shanghai pushed me outside my comfort zone, taught me how to adapt quickly, and allowed me to build meaningful professional and cultural connections.

It was a great experience, however I do think it is geared towards people with little to no work experience and did not meet all my expectations of learning something new in a new work environment. The best part was being able to practice my Spanish with my host family.

CIEE provided me with a great internship site, a clean and nice apartment in a good neighborhood, and gave me roommates who shared similar interests. The staff was extremely kind and helped me whenever I needed, and were good about checking in with me about my experiences

I think there's problems here and there with cleanliness of dorms and location choices, but overall I had a very positive experience. The staff and program as a whole I felt was a very worthwhile opportunity.

My CIEE internship in Barcelona, Spain is a great experience not just academically but also personally. I have learned so much about myself during these months and building connections is so important in life.

This program was amazing! The staff and faculty are always willing to help with anything. Whether it's about your internship placement or advice for fun adventures in the city, the staff is there for you. This program has great opportunities to grow as a student and a professional in your field. The field trips and activities in this program allowed us to take our learning outside and explore a new culture. I couldn't recommend this program enough!

I went to Shanghai to do a business development internship. It ended up being the best experience of my life!! I learned so many things about business, gained so many skills and met so many awesome people. This experience was really open-minding, and I am so grateful that Meiji Internships helped me finding this company. Each person in this company was welcoming and friendly, they all greeted me with a smile. Thanks to them I didn't feel any pressure on my working days and I was able to learn while having a fun and memorable stay. Shanghai is an impressive place, it was the first time for me to live in such a big city and it was a great experience. I also took advantage of being there to learn Chinese. This language is quite difficult and different from European languages but I like how it sounds!

Besides the work experience you will get, there are so many advantages of doing an internship abroad such as learning the language or visiting cultural sites. With so many people going abroad for their studies these days, I wanted to have my own experience to make a difference in my CV. So yeah, at first I was only thinking about my CV and my future job, but this internship was so much more than that! Every day was a new adventure with new challenges and I cherished every second of it! I know that having this kind of experience is a real chance and I'm so grateful to my parents who helped me in this adventure. I'm also thankful to Meiji Internships of course!

CIEE is very well-staffed and they do everything they can to make sure you have the best experience possible. Everyone is friendly, the rules and guidelines are laid out for you, and the excursions CIEE plans are a blast!!

I knew it would be hard to find an internship AND a place to stay in Shanghai without a high Chinese level, so I applied at Meiji Internships. I had an online interview with them and after that, I had an interview with a Chinese fashion company. I was a bit stressed but it went very well and they offered me an intern position! Shanghai is a huge city, it's crazy! When I arrived everything was ready for my arrival: airport pick-up, accommodation, sim card, etc. I was reassured to already know some people there and to be able to contact someone if something was to happen. Fortunately, I didn't have to contact anyone because everything went well! I've learned about Marketing, Chinese language and culture, and also about becoming more independent so I'm very proud of myself and all my progress!

Through Meiji, I was able to gain a deep look of what it means working for a Chinese IT company. My company was located in central Shanghai and focused on offering blockchain and cryptocurrency related services. My major being in finance gave me the opportunity to combine my interest and passion of finance with the IT world. I was able to understand the basics behind cryptocurrency, how to perform fundraising and also prepared business pitches for foreign clients and high-class individual investors. Having had the business package gave me access to several business networking events Meiji provided me with. Most of them were organized by third parties. But I was granted access to a few "invitation only" events. Business is done here quite different from back in the States, but it was a sharp learning curve I undertook in these two months in the last Summer. As a result I am walking aways equipped with new IT skills, a large pool of international contacts I made and a lot of cultural experiences. China is great! You should find out for yourself!!

I had a great time in Shanghai and learned a lot from my internship. Thanks for helping me find an internship to gain working experiences. My housing in Shanghai was very good. But I would wish to go to my priority city - Hong Kong for internship. But since the visa didn’t work out well, Shanghai was good too.

It was an amazing experience that make me realize what I want to do in the future. I’ve met the greatest people here. I wish I had more time to explore Shanghai or at least finish work a bit earlier, but overall- one of the best decision I’ve ever made.

Overall, I met quite a lot of people during my internship here, and I know the relationship will carry forward. I have learned a lot about the culture here and loved the trips that Absolute organized. It is a great experience!

The service can always improve, but I had a really incredible experience; between an interesting firm in which I had a good amount of professional advice and advancement, to some really nice absolute colleagues and fun trips. The brand of Absolute tribe is really nicely developed and program coordinators are really available to follow you and give any type of advice.

I loved all of my coworkers and am very happy I was able to work with them and get to know them. Our absolute team was amazing and the social coordinator was the best. We had so much fun, and Shanghai is a wonderful city!

Handling visa issues prior to arrival was rough...and came back to cause trouble later in the trip. Original placement company turned out to be terrible fit, but Absolute did a great job finding a new placement. New placement was great- met incredible people, did interesting and relevant work, and had great working environment. Because of visa issues (Chinese embassy gave me two 30-day visas instead of one 60-day visa) I had to leave China for a week and stay in Hong Kong. Great experience, and Absolute took care of everything. However, Absolute had also told me that there would not be any further issues with the visa, but when I was at Shanghai airport to leave for Hong Kong, I was briefly detained by Chinese security for a "visa overstay." My name is now in Chinese legal system, not happy about that at all. Overall, still managed to learn a lot.