My Experience Traveling to China as a First-Year Business Student

By Adriana Bernal Martinez ‘20

I remember the day I got this little red and yellow box in the mail. It was in late March of my Senior year of high school. I was coming back home from Debate practice at around 6 and at the sight of two little boxes just chillin’ on my doorstep, my breath caught in my throat. I wasn’t really sure what they were about whatsoever, but they seemed rather important and they had the colors of the school I had just committed to on them, so. I was anxious and excited and maybe a little teensy bitsy sweaty but upon opening them, I learned one thing and one thing only: I was going to China.

This post is going to be all about my experience following the actual Global Leadership Program course preparation for our trip to China – so, if you’d like to hear about the class itself, make sure to send in an ask and I’ll happily go over everything. This post, however, is dedicated to the trip of a lifetime. In short, I was admitted into USC Marshall and they kind of liked me, I guess, so, they sent me an invitation to be part of the Global Leadership Program. GLP is a year-long course about how to become a business leader in an increasingly international environment, and uncontested in its immersion of freshman students in the international market. You can learn more about the practical aspects of it here! As a group of around 70 freshman business students, we got to visit both Beijing and Shanghai in China for our Spring Break and the experience of doing so will be outlined below.

Fear not, however, if you’re a Marshall admit and didn’t receive invitation to this particular program. Other amazing international immersion opportunities in your freshman year are available through Marshall Learning about International Commerce Program and you can go pretty much anywhere from Sydney to Tokyo through it, so, go check that out here if you’re interested!

Now onto my personal experience – we learned a lot about what international commerce looked like in China, but upon landing in Shanghai, we were in for quite the surprise. Upon the first day, we visited a lovely temple that had a shopping street alongside it, and so began our experience in business transactions with some incredibly cunning folk – Chinese vendors. We didn’t have a single moment to breathe from the moment we landed, and even when we did, the breathtaking sights ensured that we couldn’t catch a break. With so much to see and so little time, we had to rush through a little bit at first.

Here is the temple we got to visit pretty much right after we got off the plane! It was absolutely stunning even as we rushed through without umbrellas in a rainy day.

Here is our first glance at what street shopping in China is like! It was ridiculously tempting to get closer to each store, but once we did, we were eager customers being engaged in active negotiation with the salesperson.

On our first night in Shanghai, we all got together for a fun GLPhamily dinner. What was truly the highlight of the night, however, was not necessarily the food itself. It was the experience of walking back to the hotel from the restaurant in the cold with the same people I’d spend the twelve-hour long flight with and getting to face what appeared to be one of the coldest and rainiest nights we could’ve landed to while walking along the beautiful Bund of Shanghai. Can’t say I won’t always remember the sound of the rain coming down upon the dollar umbrella as I struggled to catch up to the pace of the others around me, and can’t say I don’t miss it already from time to time. It’s the little moments with the GLPhamily that are truly present in my mind, and that first night was undoubtedly incredible. To summarize my experience with the Bund, a few days later we also got the opportunity to take a river cruise upon it and it was absolutely freezing in the upper deck but an amazing experience nevertheless. If you ever thought there were bright lights in the City of Angels, experiencing Shanghai may make you think twice.

A pictured blurred by the smoggy rain rather than my camera that captures our first glimpse of the Bund on our first day in Shanghai.

Then, of course, came the business part of the trip. Going to China was, before anything else, our first exposure to what a business trip was like. Waking up early, putting on a suit and hopping on a bus to drive us an hour away from our hotel. A big component of the GLP China trip is visiting companies, and it was certainly eye-opening and quite engaging for the wide array of enterprise types we got to visit. Aaaaand if your eyes are starting to glaze over now that we’re getting to the business part, think twice about that. ‘Cause the companies we got to visit were kind of awesome. Here were some highlights –

• We got to go backstage to where Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift lounged before their concerts at the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Shanghai with Anschutz Entertainment Group, the world’s largest owner of sports teams and sporting events.

An image from a VIP seating booth at the Mercedes-Benz Arena we got to visit in Shanghai.

• We got to visit China’s version of Pixar, Hippo Animation, and even try out some of their virtual reality innovations!

Photographed above is Dean Callahan of Marshall School of Business trying out some new business ventures into virtual reality and appearing to quite enjoy them.

• We got to visit one of the largest beer manufacturing companies in the world, Yanjing Beer Company, on St. Patrick’s day and sample their products at ten in the morning.

Photographed above are two ladies trying out some of Yanying Beer Company’s products and appearing to fight on and approve the taste.

Those were just some of my personal favorite company visits, but there’s plenty more to highlight alike Volvo, Hyundai and even the Chinese version of Oreos, Mondelez. So, even though we did have to get up rather early to ensure we made each and every company visit, there’s a reason we only ever passed out in the bus. The enterprises were each so uniquely impressive and engaging that one couldn’t help savoring every bit of information they sent our way and receiving it with plenty of questions. Personally, I had yet to think of what segment of business I would be interested in pursuing. After all the company visits I got to see, I, for one, became rather intrigued by the entertainment industry thanks to Anschutz Entertainment Group. To say the visits opened our eyes to new possibilities would be an absolute understatement. I can’t emphasize enough how genuinely incredible the opportunities to visit these companies as a first-year student were.

Even though the business was fun, as was the fun in itself. During the day, we got to spend a lot of time visiting cultural landmarks. There’s plenty to see in both Shanghai and Beijing, and admittedly we could not do everything with only a few days in each, but we made sure we hit some of the highlights –

• We got to visit the Bird’s Nest Stadium! Some of us went in and got a tour around it and some of us just stayed nearby in the McDonald’s beneath since we didn’t want to pay the fee, but it was nevertheless a sight to behold.

Photographed above are a few classmates enjoying the day and lounging by the Olympic Bird Nest Stadium. Take note of the sneakers: highly recommended when running between tourist attractions.

• We got to visit the Forbidden City! The toilets were a little hard to adjust to as they were squatters, but it was absolutely breathtaking and made for some pretty rad pictures.

Photographed above are two young women in similar outfits jumping up and down from excitement in front of the Forbidden City.

• We went to Wangfujing Food Street in Beijing and some more adventurous people got to experience new foods we are not regularly exposed to in the U.S., with a lot of things ranging from dried ice cream to raw cow meat.

An image of the diverse food options available on Wangfujing Food Street. Most happened to be on a stick.

• On our second to last morning, we got to go to the Great Wall of China and also travel down a slide from it afterward. What we didn’t realize was the amount of stair-climbing it would involve, but it was most definitely worth the climb.

Photographed above are some GLPers with our wonderful TA’s, shoutout to Paula and Landon (and Sarah too, though she’s not pictured above). They were equally as winded as everyone else but smiled through the pain of the climb as we were quite literally on top of the world.

• We were even encouraged to engage in the Chinese nightlife during the weekend, and so we did. We got to visit some amazing karaoke bars and nightclubs, and had the best time dancing the night away with our GLPhamily.
  

Picture credit: @vicsPR on Instagram. Pictured above is a popular Beijing nightclub themed after Victoria’s Secret.

The business, the fun, the people. This is all what made this first business trip of ours so special. Getting the opportunity to sit in a classroom with incredible scholars for two whole semesters and then culminate your learning about international business by putting it into practice in one of the most up-and-coming world leaders is an unbelievable experience, and most certainly a highlight of my freshman year at USC. I didn’t take this too heavily into consideration when choosing my school, but I know that this is a priceless life experience that I would not have had anywhere else. I learned not only about Chinese culture and business practices, but about myself as both a leader and a human being. So, if you are or will be a Marshall admit, make sure you partake in some form of international study your freshman year. Financial aid is generous and it may change your life in the same way it did for every last one of us seventy lucky 2017 GLPers.

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