Final chapter

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! 

Feelings before takeoff

I'm waiting extremely excited for my exchange year since I've been looking forward to having such a chance for many years already. During the upper comprehensive school I spent with my parents 3 years in Germany and after that I've known that I wanna live outside Finland in the future too. And now I have the chance to do it, so I'm pretty stoked! I've been asked several times in the past few weeks if I'm anxious or scared about moving to Shanghai. No I'm not, I don't know if I should be afraid or whatsover but I'm just excited of experiencing a completely different country and culture from that what I'm used to.. 

Of course there will be some issues that might cause problems for us at the beginning but I'm sure we'll handle those things well, and we're not alone there. There will be around 50 students with us who will need help just like us in managing some regular arrangements like getting a mobile subscription etc..Our study program is starting at the beginning of February and we don't have a accommodation in Shanghai yet, and it looks like that we have to wait until we get there. Fortunately, we've been in contact with a agency which is able to provide some apartments for us to look at and hopefully we find a decent crib to live in for the coming six months :) We were also told that we should receive a list of all the participants on this program by mid December - Nothing yet - but since the university is a French one, there's no need to be worried about some delays related to compromised days and deadlines :) but that list would certainly help us because there are many other students dealing with the same problems and roommates are always welcomed! 

But now it's time for Christmas and the New Year's celebrations, so we'll see us again next year.. Happy Holidays from rainy Finland!