Year 11 students at the Yew Chung International School of Beijing are wrapping up their final year in our IGCSE programme with two-week internships all around Beijing, from local media outlets to cultural exchange centers to five-star restaurants.

Two of our students had the incredible opportunity to work with local music promotion agency SplitUnited, responsible for organizing well-known music festivals like Concrete and Grass and Jue Music + Art, plus bringing all kinds of Chinese and Western artists to Beijing to perform.

We spoke with Claudia Rader, one of our two Year 11 students interning with SplitUnited, on her experience helping to plan and promote nationwide music festivals and concerts!

What have you been doing with SplitUnited during this internship?

Over my time with SplitUnited, I’ve been helping with the promotions for the Concrete and Grass music festival, as well as helping them build their snapchat specifically for the festival itself.

What specific acts or events did you help to market or publicize?

During the course of my internship, I had the opportunity to help out with a concert featuring Benjamin Francis Leftwich. I photographed the concert and made a short video. However, most of my time has been spent helping to prepare for the upcoming festival. I’ve been working on short videos that will announce what artists will be performing. I also designed Snapchat geofilters for the festival.

What has been the most fun about this internship?

Definitely the concert. I hadn’t gone to one in over a year and a half, and I thought it was really cool to be able to see most of what happens behind the scenes. Another fun part was being able to have conversations about music and having the opportunity to give input on what kind of music people like and who would be good to bring over.

What part was the most challenging?

The hours; it was a weird time frame to work in. I myself am more productive in the morning, and I also started noticing that around 3:10 (when school normally lets out), my brain would start to shut off because I’m not as used to doing a lot of work after school ends. Also, the project got a little repetitive towards the end, which made it hard to concentrate sometimes.

What practical skills have you learned from this internship?

From this experience I have been able to explore and use what I know in a real professional way, and was able to improve based off of that. Through this experience, I now know what I need to improve about myself. Because the hours were difficult for me, I also learned how to manage my time in a way that would make my working most effective, such as working for an hour, then taking a 20-minute break. This helped so that my work was spaced out in intervals and helped me not get tired as quickly.

How do you believe this internship has improved you as a person?

I have definitely improved my editing skills through this internship thanks to all of the different styles of music I had to edit. Additionally, working in this environment has given me more appreciation for my free time; it felt like my time home each day was a mere ten minutes, so I definitely value that time more!

I think this internship have also given me an amazing opportunity as the work I was doing was work that is beneficial to the agency and actually going to be used. Because of this, I’ve felt that I’ve had a greater sense of responsibility for and ownership of what I’m doing.

Would you recommend this internship to students next year? Why or why not?

I would highly recommend this internship. It’s a lot of fun, especially when you get to talk about your favorite musical artist and give recommendations. It is definitely a lot of work, but if you are passionate about the industry and topic, it can be really interesting. If you’re lucky, like me, there might even be a concert you can attend, which is a perk!

How did your YCIS Beijing teachers support you during the interview process?

Our teachers helped prepare us with interview and resume sessions. From these sessions, we learnt how to write a resume correctly and what kind of information to include. In the interview sessions, we prepared as a group, brainstorming what questions we could possibly be asked so that we were prepared in our answers, plus had possible follow-up questions to ask.

Learn more about our IGCSE programme, and the students’ opportunities to learn beyond classroom walls, by visiting the department page!