Becoming Part of the C4Family

From China to Germany: Shenkai in the ‘Chemiepark’ Marl or, becoming Part of the C4Family

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Ni Hao, 

this is Chinese and means hello. As you can probably tell by now, I am from China and my name is Shenkai. I am also currently an eMarketing intern at Evonik Performance Intermediates and I am more than happy to be able to share my journey as intern with you. However, since journeys have to start somewhere, I would like to tell you at first a little about myself. I have finished my B. Sc in Applied Chemistry at Beijing University of Chemical Technology in Beijing, China. Since Germany has long been known for its chemical industry, and German culture and way of working appeal to me in general, I decided in my sophomore year to learn German as a second foreign language, so that I would be able to study abroad for my master's degree. In China, especially in mega cities such as Beijing, there are various language schools and more and more schools that focus solely on German. The famous Goethe Institute, which you may have already heard about, is for example also located in Beijing. Besides language schools, private schools also offer language courses, which is how I started to learn German. My journey began seven years ago, and I am still learning but learning German has been a great help for my Master of Science in Chemistry and Pharmacy, which I am doing at the University of Tuebingen, Germany. Of course, knowing German has also been a great help during my internship. I decided very early on that I also wanted to do an internship while studying abroad because I wanted to also gain some actual insights into the chemical business industry instead of just doing lab work, which seemed a little too boring for me. 

You might wonder, how someone with a non-business major ends up in the marketing dept… But it’s possible!  You can do an internship in Evonik’s Pricing & eMarketing department for e.g. as long as you have some basic knowledge about marketing and some necessary skills. In my case, I had a student job at DAAD Beijing Branch Office, which focused on social media marketing and my academic background on Chemistry. Both made a good combination and made it possible for me to do an internship at the eMarketing department of Evonik. 

My internship consists of supporting the Performance Intermediates, in short PI, Business Line, especially with online marketing and online promotion of our products. This means we have a lot of activities such as workshops, meetings and group projects that may spark creative ideas and thoughts here and there – necessary and highly important for marketing. Another important aspect, and one of my tasks, is the optimization of product descriptions and the collection and summary of marketing content, so that we have a solid fundament for our social media channels. This means we translate and revise articles, create new marketing texts for our products and develop new social media campaigns. For example, we developed a new eMarketing campaign using various hashtags. One of them is #C4Youngsters which shows new colleagues, talking about how and why they became part of the C4Family. Campaigns like these are not only fun but also help us to attract more applicants. 

My internship may only have begun but I can already see that it is going to be amazing. In this short time, I have got to know many friendly colleagues. The slogan of the Performance Intermediates (PI) Business Line also catches this feeling well: We do #Chemistry4People. It is the people who turn a regular internship into a great experience where you can learn not only about how to do a job, but also about how to do a good job. Namely, through teamwork, people’s motivation and the energy they put into their work. 

Last but not least, since my internship lasts until the end of the year, I am excited to see Christmas in Germany and to celebrate it with many colleagues from different countries. 

See you soon, 
Shenkai 

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On the students@Evonik blog students who work at Evonik share their experiences about life in the company.