Shijie Guo ’14 – Getting up at 9:00AM and driving with Hao Liu’11 to Sanlitun becomes my new routine every weekday. This summer, I am doing an internship at Hao’s company—Sinoway International Education Group (SIE) in Beijing. Thanks to Career Services and the Small Business Internship Fund, I can get an unforgettable working experience in the capital of China.

Sinoway International Education Group is a company that hosts the first and the largest international summer school in China. There are four campuses this summer, and each of them are located in a major city in China: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Nanjing. I am working at the headquarters as an Intern Assistant Manager. My first task was to collect data about students during the past two years and this year. I categorized all the students by school, gender, and class year. Then, the business development department could use those models to analyze the development situation in each school.

Hao’11 shares his apartment with me so that I can get more chances to talk to him. He always talks about how to start a business and how to manage a company. I have learned a lot of business development strategies from him, and it turns out that my next task is to find a good way to offer textbook service for our students next summer. Since we promise students that we can offer genuine U.S. edition or international edition textbooks at a very low price, I have to do some research regarding textbook import, copyrights, and even shipping cost and delivery dates. International copyright is an important thing for an education company. Some big education companies in China have been involved in lawsuits regarding international copyrights. I am currently doing some research in order to know the basic information in this industry, and find a good and efficient way to offer cheap and legal textbooks for students. I am interested in this job and looking forward to completing it well.

On June 25, Dr. Melissa Butler, a professor from political science department of Wabash College, taught at the  Shanghai campus and came to our Beijing office to attend an academic meeting. I was so proud to hear that she told a professor from another university that SIE is our “Wabash Mafia” in China. Some colleagues ask me how I like Wabash, and it is always one simple answer: it is hard, but it will be worth it.

At the end, I want to thank Hao Liu’11 and the Wabash College Small Business Internship Fund for giving me such a great opportunity. Two years ago when I just got my visa to the States, I never thought that I could work in Beijing after two years. I also want to thank my Phi Delta Theta brothers, for the confidence and brotherhood that they give me.