The Beginning of High School – And my Discovery of Photography

From 2009 to 2017 I studied at Leonardo-da-Vinci High School in Cologne. Since I am by nature a very curious and open-minded person, I participated already during lower grades in various working groups and engaged myself particularly as a junior and senior in different projects. During 6th grade, I participated in the photography group, which allowed me to expand my knowledge of photography, one of my greatest passions. During a four-week internship in a Cologne-based specialized photography store, I not only learned more about photography but also came into contact with the retail business for the first time. The extracurricular activity and the internship laid the foundation for my first photo exhibitions in the gallery Smend and 2017 in a large Chinese bookstore.

My American Dream – A Year Abroad in the USA

After 9th grade, I spent my first year abroad and attended Culpeper County High School in Virginia. Back then, I decided to spend a year living outside of Europe because I wanted to immerse myself in another culture far away from home. I deliberately chose the US because it is the country many believe to know very well, yet most do not. In order to get to know the American school system better, I did not only choose unusual courses such as agriculture, sports marketing, and technical drawing but also took part in several extracurricular activities. For example, I got involved in Blue Crew, an event management program, took part in the musical Grease as a stage assistant, played tennis during Spring and baseball during the Winter season. One of the focal points of my year abroad was voluntary work. Among others, I was involved in local food distribution, helped at sports events, and supported a blood donation campaign. During the ten months, I volunteered for more than 100 hours. This first year abroad taught me a lot about how diverse cultures can be and that stereotypes are often nothing more than premature conclusions.

Mentor, Tutor, Interviewer – My Engagement at Partnership International e.V.

Since my return from the USA, I have been involved with my former exchange organization Partnership International. Meanwhile, I have been active in almost every area in which one can volunteer in the association. My main focus is the support of foreign exchange students in Germany, the selection of scholarship holders for the CBYX scholarship program (a cooperation between the American Congress and the German Bundestag) as well as the organization of seminars to prepare students for their stay abroad.  I am also responsible for the coordination of the PI Meeting Days, where we recruit students and encourage them to take part in our programmes. In this context, team planning is for me as important as the conception of new seminar content and the constant revision of existing topics. Through this extensive commitment, I get to know a lot of young, internationally oriented people, learn new skills and have the possibility to continue my exchange.

Junior and Senior Year – Between Exams and Engagement

The positive experiences I gained during my voluntary work in the USA motivated me during my Junior and Senior year of high school in Germany to volunteer not only for Partnership International but also within my school. My commitment was divided into two core areas: From 2015 to 2017, I was involved in setting up the Buntes Herz charity project. With this project, I actively engaged myself in helping refugees and weekly visited a nearby school, where I taught German to young refugees and tried to make the German culture more tangible. The second area of my involvement within high school included my function as a class representative and as head of the graduation committee. Since organization and planning are two of my strengths, these tasks were tailor-made for me. When we created the yearbook, I benefited from my journalistic knowledge, which I was able to generate during various seminars and workshops.

First Work Experiences at Peek & Cloppenburg

Since fashion is a passion of mine and I enjoy working with people, I initially did an internship in retail management at Peek & Cloppenburg in October 2016. Because I loved my work, I decided to join the fashion house as a permanent shop assistant. From December 2016 to August 2017, I worked in the men’s premium and men’s shirts department and gained further insights into areas like visual merchandising. I enjoyed my work because I was on the one side able to work with customers and advise them throughout the purchase process and on the other side to gain my first insights into various business areas. However, it was the team spirit what made me thrilled about the company and what was a key ingredient for the success of our department.

The Time After Graduation – A Combination of University Studies and Voluntary Service in China

Due to the constant contact with foreign countries and cultures, it was no question that I would go abroad after graduating from high school. Nevertheless, I thought about what I wanted to do for quite some time. Because of my interest in the Chinese language, my curiosity about a completely unfamiliar Asian culture, and the increasing economic importance of the country, I eventually decided for China. The combination of studying and volunteering was the perfect mix for me. At the Xi’an International Studies University (西安外国语大学), I learned Chinese four hours a day. After class, I worked at the Goethe Language Centre Xi’an, a branch of the German Goethe Institute. My main task was to teach Chinese students about German culture. Among other things, I did this by designing a three-day seminar and giving various smaller presentations. I also created one of the first “German Corners” of Xi’an and supported my boss in organizational tasks. In addition to these areas, I was in charge of social media marketing and published regularly blog articles about the events I organized.

The wide-ranging work allowed me to carry on the German culture and get an understanding of Chinese culture. Especially in China, a country where only a small fraction of the population speaks English, it was incredibly helpful to combine work with language learning. Looking back, however, I realized that I not only learned Mandarin but also to identify myself as a European and that many of the values that are so fundamental to us are not to be taken for granted.

Parallel to my work at the Goethe Language Centre and the language courses, I also practised two of my greatest passions: journalism and photography. As a China correspondent, I wrote articles for Orange by Handelsblatt, the student magazine of the Handelsblatt publishing group, and for Youthreporter, an online magazine partially sponsored by the European Union. I started building my MyChineseAdventure blog, which has received over 30,000 to date. On this blog, I could not only publish photographs but also inform about China and hopefully clear some of the common prejudices. The photographs I took during the year I also exhibited in a large bookstore for two consecutive weeks. The opening of the exhibition was accompanied by a local TV station, to which I gave an interview about my photographs and experiences in China.

Homelike – An Internship at a Start-up in the PropTech Sector

Already in the week after my return from China, I started an internship at the PropTech-Startup Homelike. Homelike is an online platform where business travellers and companies can book furnished business apartments. Founded in 2015, the start-up has listed apartments in Germany and other European countries and employs more than 100 people. During the three months, I was part of the Booking Management department and temporarily responsible for bookings for the entire German state North Rhine-Westphalia with high-turnover cities such as Dusseldorf and Cologne. To put it in simple words, my job was to accompany private and business customers during their booking process and ultimately convince them to rent one of our apartments. As at Peek & Cloppenburg, I was trained in customer contact, but this time for e-mail and telephone. Not only did I learn various negotiation strategies in this time but also experienced the differences between a large corporation and a young, dynamic start-up.

My Studies at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management

Since September 2018 I am enrolled at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management. My three-year Bachelor of Science degree in International Business Administration and Management gives me the opportunity to build up a sound knowledge of business while continuing to explore foreign cultures. In addition to my full-time studies, I not only continue to learn Chinese but also work as a student assistant for the University’s Public Relations office where I write articles about campus events and other student-related topics. In addition, I was involved in the pro-bono consultancy Saidia for the first two semesters. In a long-term project, I supported the Filippas Engel Foundation, where I was responsible for marketing and the modification of operational processes. Simultaneously, I was part of be.boosted, a German association that promotes leadership among bachelor, master and doctoral students. After several months of weekly training, we took part in LIMUN, one of the most prestigious Model United Nations conferences in Europe located in London and received as recognition for our excellent teamwork the diplomacy award for the best large delegation.

Infosys InStep – Three Months of Indian Culture as Part of the World’s Best Internship Program

Directly following the Management Abroad course of WHU, with which I had visited within two weeks over ten companies in the Indian megacities Bangalore and Mumbai, I started my internship at the headquarters of the IT service provider Infosys in Bangalore. Infosys is one of India’s largest enterprises and has more than 220,000 employees worldwide. For three months, I had the privilege of living in India’s Silicon Valley, getting to know the Indian culture and working in one of the world’s most innovative firms. I decided to join Infosys’ Digital Media Marketing department as part of the renowned global internship program Infosys InStep, which was recognized as the best internship program in the world by the career platform Vault in 2019 and 2020. With more than 20,000 applications per year, the programme has an acceptance rate of less than 2%. After getting in touch with various areas of sales in the past, it was now my goal to understand how companies generate leads and transform them into paying customers. During the three months, I focused on social media marketing. I was given the unique opportunity to develop a marketing and branding strategy for the InStep internship program and to implement it in the course of my internship. In addition to the job-related aspects, the encounters with interns from over 30 nationalities have left a lasting impression on me.

The Long-term View – This is how I Envision my Future

Even though WHU is internationally known for entrepreneurship and enterprises like Rocket Internet and Zalando were founded here, I currently do not intent to found my own venture (although I do not rule it out). At the moment, a career in a large strategy consultancy is particularly appealing to me. I believe that consulting is the perfect combination of internationality, exciting and diversified projects, customer contact, and solution-oriented work. Since I consider the world to be my home and do not want to be bound to national borders, I cannot only imagine working in a multinational company but also living completely abroad. This should not sound like a dream though but is actually my plan.

Click here, to download my vita as a PDF file (US Version)