Happy New Year to everyone reading the blog! 2013 was a huge year for InternChina and I thought I’d take the opportunity to sum up the biggest company events of 2013 with a New Year’s blog post.
After a successful year in 2012 we decided to invest in the continuing growth of IC, in order to carry on improving our programmes and offer more choice to future interns coming to China with IC.  The biggest part of this investment was to open a new office in Chengdu. We’ve been up and running in Chengdu since February and have already placed nearly 50 interns. Chengdu is a fantastic place to run programmes and offers something a bit different to Qingdao and Zhuhai. Personally I think Chengdu is the best example of rapid Chinese modernisation, but also manages to maintain a relaxed vibe and the opportunity to escape the hustle and bustle with beautiful countryside easily accessible. The Tibetan district is really cool and the wall hanging I bought there is now hanging in my flat in Manchester!

I’m now based in the UK, mainly working on our marketing in Europe and specifically promoting Generation UK, the funding programme which we have become an approved supplier for. The completion of this agreement with the British Council was another major development in 2013 and after a long process of application and vetting, we are now proud to be a part of an amazing funding campaign for UK students. This development really cements our place as one of the leading companies providing internship programmes in China and will help hundreds of British students gain unique insights in Qingdao, Chengdu and Zhuhai over the next year. We were proud to take part in the Experience China Fair in London in 2013, as part of the Generation UK campaign:

Another major development for IC in 2013 was the launch of our new website, which you are viewing right now! Big thanks to Jack Fairhead for all the help with creating the site!

We were also excited to complete 3 significant long-term contracts to supply programmes for new and existing partner universities in 2013. We now run group programmes in all 3 of our destinations.

I have been busy on the road promoting IC and British and German universities in 2013, which was a great way to meet students and market our programmes. We’ve never been able to exhibit at European exhibitions before, but now that I am based in the UK we are able to do this:

We were sad to say goodbye to Rita from the Qingdao office in October, but as we move forward, we have also welcomed some new faces to the team, as you’ll see on our updated About Page.

On another personal note, I got married this year! I’ve put some pictures in the gallery below and as you’ll see there were some Chinese touches and some familiar IC team members present at the wedding! Apart from jetting to the UK for my wedding, IC team members have also been busy travelling to other exotic locations such as Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, the USA, Japan, South Korea, Thailand and many more!

Finally, the highlight of my year in 2013 (apart from getting married, of course!) was our first ever all-IC team get-together in Chengdu. This was the first time we’ve had almost all of IC’s permanent staff (Yifan stayed in Qingdao to look after baby Mia!) in one place, so as you’ll see from the pictures, we made sure we used the opportunity to eat, drink and even do a little bit of work together! I’m looking forward to more good times and progress for IC in 2014!

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