I first said hello to my CSC teammates in February on a conference call. In the months leading up to our departure, we continued to have weekly team calls as well as some one-on-one meetings. When I arrived in Chengdu 4 weeks ago, I finally said hello to everyone in person. And now this past weekend, I said goodbye.
The goodbyes I said at the beginning of May in DC were sad, but I also knew I would be seeing everyone again in a month. The goodbyes I said over the past couple of days were totally different because I don’t know if I will ever see these people again.
I developed stronger relationships with my teammates and translators than I ever imagined. Not only did we spend our workdays together, but we also spent our evenings and weekends together exploring a new country and culture. During our closing ceremony on Friday, it really hit me that I had to say goodbye to all of these wonderful people and it was hard to fight back the tears. I think by the end of the night, everyone had cried at least once.
BUT on a positive note, I’m excited that I now have so many new friends in all different parts in the world, and I’m hopeful that our paths will cross at some point in the future
We learned so many new things together, like Asian squats and finger hearts
We also wrapped up our project this week and presented our final deliverables to our client. We provided process recommendations for incubating new start-ups, as well as a free project management tool her team can use to improve their communication and provide insight into their goals. She seemed really excited about everything we showed her, and it seems that she will be sharing our recommendations with other incubators in the community!
After our final presentation, we presented our client with a team picture as a thank you for everything she did for us while we were in China
To celebrate after our deliverables presentation, we went out to Chinese barbecue. Each table had its own grill and you could pick any meat and vegetables you wanted and grill them!
A barbecue night was the perfect way to celebrate a month of hard work with our clients
On Friday, we had our Closing Ceremony where we got to learn about everything the other sub-teams had achieved over the past month.
My sub-team sharing our results
I am so grateful for all of the experiences I had here in China, both professional and personal. I couldn’t have asked for a better CSC experience. My client’s company name was WisU (pronounced like wish-you). Our parting words to them were “we WisU the best” – and I couldn’t mean that more sincerely. Thanks for a wonderful month, China!
