International students are enjoying more opportunities for personal development in China, thanks to the great number of prestigious scholarships and advantageous internships available to them. These not only help students to apply what they have learned at school, but also give them the opportunity to explore China's workplace and economic development.

"I never expected that I could intern at one of the top five futures companies in China. I feel so lucky and cherish this opportunity very much," says Tsend-Ayush Batkhaan, a Mongolian student and finance major at Zhejiang University.

Batkhaan is one of many international students benefiting from the internship program launched by the China International Youth Exchange Center. The program has been running for two years, and provides great career opportunities for young global talent in China. As for Batkhaan, he worked as an intern at Yongan Futures Co to study pure terephthalic acid, also known as PTA, its industrial chain distribution and the law of price fluctuation.

Since childhood, Batkhaan has often traveled between China and Mongolia with his family, which has given him a front-row seat to China's spectacular economic development over the years. "Compared to my home country, China's economy is more developed, I would like to stay here and start my own business in the future," he says.

Fast pace, fast growth

Kevin Gong is an American student at the Central University of Finance and Economics in Beijing. He interned at Shenwan Hongyuan Securities Co, and was responsible for the analysis of announcements of listed companies, as well as data excerpts from balance sheets, cash flow statements, and income statements.

"I would rate my internship performance a seven out of 10.Although the job was not hard, there was still a lot of experience required for me to adapt to fast-paced work for the first time," Gong says.

He had never worked as part of a team and the internship taught him how to work with other people. He once cooperated with team members on collecting fiscal revenue data from counties across the country, but he forgot to check the results of his colleagues to avoid errors. The mistake resulted in an increased workload within the group and affected their work efficiency.

For him, working in the financial sector is bittersweet. "This mistake was both a lesson and an opportunity for me. Now that I have decided to continue in the financial industry in the future, I will try my best to adapt and become better," he says.

Dream chaser from Africa

Daniel Tolessa Negera comes from Ethiopia and studies electromechanical engineering at Hefei University of Technology in East China's Anhui province. His impression of China began with the movie Karate Kid, and when he grew up, he decided to pursue his own Chinese dream.

Negera was excited when he learned that he got an internship at a Suzhou-based cosmetics company in East China's Jiangsu province. "I like new challenges in my life. Leaving the comfort of staying at school with my friends during the winter vacation and doing an internship, where I knew nobody, was not easy," he says, adding that it was an amazing opportunity.

He worked for two months in the production department of the company. Every morning in the workshop, he needed to keep an eye on the machines and take samples, reporting product defects to the production line workers.

Thanks to the internship, he got hands-on experience with a lot of new machines and technologies, a great complement to his professional development. Under the guidance of his leaders, he also learned about a lot of standardized operation processes on production lines.

"The leaders supported me through the internship, especially my immediate boss. He treated me like a brother and I felt at home during my two months at the company," says Negera, stressing the close ties between people when talking about the internship.

Now his greatest wish is to explore and discover more about China, and he plans to seek more opportunities to study and work in China, which he describes as his "second home", and try to achieve his dream.

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