Junjie’s China blog

My internship in China

Originally this Blog has been something between a personal diary and a place where my friends could see what I’m doing. However so much has changed from when I began almost one year ago in some boring rainy October days. During the last months my blog has become a general China info blog, but todays post is back to the roots so to speak as I talk about my internship in a company where I develop Blackberry software. Yet this article does have its informational moments.

Some day last year in autumn….

Some day last year in autumn I was looking for an internship. My plan was definitely to go back to China. At that moment I just came back to Germany from my Chengdu trip and I was absolutely sure that I want to go to China again for a number of reasons. These reasons include keep on learning Chinese, great food and nice Chinese women. There was one more reason, actually it was a question: Do I really want to stay in China for a long time? So far I can answer this question with a clear YES.

Looking for an internship in China

Doing an internship in China also required me to find an internship in China. I realized two things:

1. There are countless arranged internships
2. Depending on Your major You have a very easy time or a very hard time to find an internship

Arranged Internships are internship where the applicant can sign up with an internship agency and this agency will process the applicants application and will also help finding an internship. However the apllicant has to pay money to this agency. I’m clearly against this type of internship for a number of reasons.

By using an agency the point of an internship is lost to great part. Universities ask their students to do an internship for good reason. The students should learn how to find a job by themselves. Using an agency defeats this point pretty much.

Also agencies charge money for each internship. Normally a the fee is deducted from the interns salary monthly, however it is not uncommon that the whole sum has to be paid at the beginning. This being said the agency has great interest to hook up as many applicants with as many companies as possible to earn more money. I doubt this is the best way to find a quality internship.

I used google to find an internship. Through google I found some China specific job sites. I also found a number of jobs directly on company sites and also some specific internship sites (in German, so they are not linked here). What struck me is the amoung of internships available for IT guys like me. Hardly any. If Your major is marketing or economics You have an insane huge selection of internships, however people who study something else should invest a lot of time in finding something.

Finally I found….

An Blackberry / Java Programming Internship

For those who don know, a Blackberry is some kind of smartphone, or mobile phone with more keys than a normal mobile phone. Blackberry mobile phones are mostly used among business people because it has a unique feature: Emails can be pushed from Email accounts onto the phone. Today other mobile phone companies copied this feature, however RIM (Research in Motion) was the first company to do so with their Blackberry mobile phones. A number of other business related features make Blackberrys a first choice for upper management business people or for anyone looking for a good smartphone.

I found my place in a very small company that developes software for Blackberry phones using the programming language Java. Programming software for Blackberry is unique in its own way. The Blackberry has a very strict security so that a software developer has to do a lot to make things work on this phone. Sometimes things are different than it is written in the documentation and I have to test and draw conclusions how things really work with this little wonder of Candian technology.

I really like working with mobile phones as I’m still quite young. I use mobile phones myself and can relate to them. Sometime I hear people say: “You have to do something You like.” And it is so true. I do like see my little programs come to live. The developement cycles are quite short on mobile phones and soon after I begin programming I can see results.

Conclusion

If You are interested in mobile phones and have an IT background, give programming a try. You can program for Blackberry phones, which is a really smart idea I can tell You, or for some other mobile plattform. The number of mobile phone users is huge and still growing with more people than ever buying mobile phones especially in developing countries.

I’m happy that I do this and no other internship and hope to stay in the mobile phones / telecommunications industry. Hopefully as early as next year in summer.

Usefull words

黑莓 hēi méi – Blackberry (the smartphone and the fruit)
手机 shǒujī – mobile phone
黑莓手机 hēi méi shǒujī – Blackberry mobilephone
草莓 cǎoméi – strawberry
编程 biānchéng – to program (software)

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