Elly Zhu, G11, RDF International School

During this summer vacation, I participated in the Business Elite Program in Hong Kong, which is a two-week internship. From this program, I not only learned about financial systems, investment theory and Hong Kong’s market operation, but also explored my leadership potential and interpersonal skills.

On the first day, some other interns and I at a company met our mentor Felix, a solemn but nice person. He introduced each department of the company and helped us to get familiar with the environment. Then we met our group members, a total number of eight people, in the first class. They came from different cities. After self-introductions, we started our class to learn some basic knowledge, including finance and insurance. At the end of the first day, we received our first task: giving a presentation based on the insurance product — Alpha — on the third day.

That night, our group leader gathered us to discuss our topic and delegate specific tasks to each member. With a clear objective and idea, we soon finished nearly half of the whole project. On the second day, we asked our mentor for professional advice on our presentation. Based on his suggestions, we added some products from rival companies to better present the advantage of our product. Although we only had 15 minutes to introduce our product, we still kept rehearsing and revising our project again and again until 3:30 a.m. to give the perfect presentation for our product. Finally, our group won first place.

This valuable experience provided me with the opportunity to apply financial theory to practice. I not only learned professional knowledge about finance, but also developed essential teamwork and communication skills. At the same time, I also realized the importance of teamwork whether in study or future work.

“One person can go fast, but a group of people can go far,” my former teacher once said, and this is what I always believe.