That’s probably the most common response I get when telling people where I work. Admittedly, yes, it is far (just look at the map, it's circled in red on the light blue line), but thankfully the people and the scenery makes the 40 minutes train ride worth it (and also because I take a direct line to work and usually get seats, but to those who want to come to Sheshan, no worries because we have shuttles buses from Gubei as well ^^). Because shuttle buses don’t run on Saturdays, we take Roger’s car to work. We are picked up at the Starbucks near his house where we will order 拿铁 for Roger, 伯爵茶 for Ruby (our manager) and whatever you’d like for yourself that day. Car rides with Roger are always interesting. We talk about almost anything and everything, from serious things like work to trivial stuff like dramas (which he will insist you watch because they are “really very nice, you won’t regret it! Wah I tell you ah, I start already I cannot stop.”). By the way, before I go on, Roger is the General Manager of Shanghai Sheshan International Golf Club and also my boss and mentor. He is a fellow Singaporean who many of you will be very familiar with because you’ll be changing money through him (SGD to RMB). While he is an extremely fun boss who jokes around with you, work is work and he expects nothing but the best that you can offer. I think it’s pretty obvious that Sheshan is not a startup (we have over 300 staff, with 10 years of history), so if you’re looking for experience in starting up a business then I’m afraid Sheshan isn’t for you (and that’s completely fine!). However, I feel that being in such an established company also has different kinds of perks and things to learn that are still ultimately related to the year-long program that we are journeying on.
Apart from these projects that we are embarking on, our day-to-day job scope includes maintaining our communications platforms such as our WeChat account and the enewsletters, constantly working hand-in-hand with other departments (Events, Ops, Sales, F&B, Coaches, etc) and helping out in Club events. We source for potential partners, draft marketing proposals and contracts and attend meetings with clients. All the normal hu-ha, the normal things you would expect to learn and do in a company. So what makes us interesting? 1. Buggy around the Golf Course
changes with the season. Not only that, it’s filled with animals that it almost qualifies as a zoo: We have a whole family of deer (sika deer!) that you can feed, noisy geese that you can chase, ducks quacking in the pond and squirrels scurrying around! 2. HSBC World Golf Championship (WGC) The biggest event and probably the highlight of my internship here so far! And I’m pretty sure it’s the same for all the other interns before me too! Sheshen Golf Club has been hosting the HSBC World Golf Championship for the past 10 years and is the only golf club out of America and Europe to have the privilege to host a World Golfing event. It was an incredible experience getting up close with the top professional golfers in the world (!!!), hosting and tee-ing them off on Day 0, the Pro-Am Day, and following our favourite golfer around all 18-holes just to watch him play. Of course, it isn’t all just about fun (although it really was). We were super busy leading up towards the huge event – generating publicity for the event, confirming which golfers were coming, filling out media pass forms, etc – and after each day of the event as we had quickly write the day’s review and post the next day’s fixtures (both in English and Chinese). But it was all worth it – more than 35,000 visitors came over the span of four days, breaking our record since its inception! I’ll be doing up a post about it soon to share about the entire event! 3. Networking with Our Members
4. Meet Amazing People
5. Join the Family of NOC Interns
This list is definitely not exhaustive. I haven’t even had the chance to touch on golf lessons (I suck at golf. The other time I swung my club in what I thought was the proper technique – shoulders, waist, legs… and it probably was, but I completely missed the tiny golf ball and my “coach”, also our Director of Golf, had to see the entire spectacle and to which he commented, “Wow, great swing! Your ball must have gone really far, maybe 400m, I can’t even see where it went!”, sigh.), free lunches (although don’t get your hopes too high up, it’s just meh after months but free is free!), free uniform (which changes with the season) and many many more. It has been a great four months in Sheshan and I really hope to be able to add on even more to this list when I leave in seven months!
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SHEN
申城 (shen cheng) is an ancient name for Shanghai.
As a group of NUS and NOC students who are in Shanghai for a year-long internship programme, we have named our student organisation as SHEN (Shanghai House of Entrepreneurs). Archives
November 2017
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