I felt left behind. Almost everyone I knew began doing programs over the summer, except for me. The only thing I had planned was going swimming four hours a day, studying for SAT and somehow returning to China. I thought it might be a good idea to sign up for an internship to get an experience in a career field that I possibly will pursue in the future. I attempted to sign up for a medical internship, but that did not pan out. I needed to be in college with a medical major in order to land an internship. Therefore, I decided to do an internship with the company Next Step China.

Interning is like a real job.

Internships give high school students a good idea of a “real life” work setting. It’s different than studying in a library at school or working at home because you cannot be playing on your cell phone or hanging out on Facebook. Those are just distractions. [On a side note, Facebook doesn’t work in China.] I think that it is good for a student to understand how a real job works, so doing an internship with NSC or another company is a good experience.

Interning is not easy.

Like high school, an internship will not always be easy. Sometimes, you will have a lot of work that you can get done within your work hours. Other times, you will have to wake up early or stay late to complete it all. Although it may sound bad, everything in life has its pros and cons. Nothing is ever 100% good or 100% bad. It is what it is.

Interning teaches you discipline.

An internship will teach you discipline, both inside and outside the office. Most teenagers enjoy their summer relaxing and not caring about work, but it is good to build your work ethic over the summer. Most teenagers are annoyed at the amount of work they get when school starts back up. Doing any type of internship will get you disciplined for college and your next year of high school.

Interning makes you dependable.

During an internship, you will discover how reliable you are. Most of the time you will have a deadline, and if you don’t do the work in a timely fashion, it will reflect a lack of dependability. Not good.

Interning gets you out of your comfort zone.

I believe that it is important to do an internship in China because you are in a setting that you will not be completely comfortable in. For example, if you do an internship anywhere in the United States or an English-speaking country, you would be comfortable. In China, you might be working at an English-speaking company, but outside the walls of that building, it is a very different environment.

Interning requires you to practice your Chinese.

This is my second time coming to China to work with NSC. The first time I only did intensive tutoring, but this year I am doing an internship.  At first, it was definitely challenging for me to muster the confidence to use my Chinese, to order food or go somewhere in a Taxi. I learned that I needed to be able to do these things in order to succeed in China, no matter what I was doing.

Interning will cultivate independence.

One very important thing that an internship will teach you in China is how to live independently. Whether you are staying at the dorms or in an apartment, you must be able to get food and navigate the city by yourself. Of course, the NSC staff will help you, but once they have helped you enough, you need to try and do it by yourself. I think that an internship in China is great because you don’t have your parents to fall back on. Being in China is a different kind of experience, where you will be responsible for everything you do since no one is “babysitting” you.

Overall, I am very happy with both of my experiences with Next Step China. I am learning a great deal as a high school intern this time around. I hope these reasons for doing an internship in China as a teenager have convinced you to check out available internships. Maybe, we’ll get to meet someday in China!