It's been a while now since the semester did finish and I moved back to Finland. It was truly an awesome experience I won't forget and I'm glad I chose China and especially Shanghai as my go-to-place. As anywhere else, you face some difficulties when moving to a foreign country but all in all my almost 6 months stay went pretty smoothly. For the future expats going to Shanghai, I'd recommend using the services of a western based company that helps you to find a flat and organizing all the other necessary amenities such as internet, water and gas. Our partner university suggested us to use a local company, but now that I know the possibilities I would've done otherwise. The level of service in the Chinese standards is - let's say - not that high compared to the western standards.
Our exchange program consisted of 6 courses we had to execute and they all dealt with the Asian business environment focusing mostly on marketing and supply chain operations in China. The courses were
- Asian business research project
- Consumer behavior in the Asian market
- Cross cultural management and negotiation
- Asian economy and geopolitics
- Fashion sourcing (not sure why this was part of the program :))
- Chinese language course
Compared to i.e. the difficulty and workload of my previous courses in my home university in Finland, these courses were quite easy and not so work-intensive, but we learned many great aspects about doing business in China that are helpful in the future if I happen to work with some Chinese people/companies etc.
Now I've been over a month and a half back home in Finland and soon it's time for me to start doing my master's thesis, so thanks a lot for following my exchange time and this blog!
Arrivederci!
