What two RST students gleaned from internships abroad

Every year, students studying Recreation, Sport and Tourism at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign venture across the United States for professional internships. Some even find work outside of the country.

The College of Applied Health Sciences spoke with two RST students set to graduate this May, David Shan and Juan Manrique, who spent last summer working abroad in China and Guatemala, respectively.

Their interviews have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

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RST student David Shan spent his early life in California but went to middle and high school in Beijing, China. He was always into sports, participating in volleyball and badminton. He even founded a huge badminton tournament at his high school. Shan followed his passion to RST at Illinois, where he’s set to graduate early—and he’s already interned for some of the biggest gaming companies in the world.

What company did you intern for last summer? 

I interned for Electronic Soul, a game studio and public-traded company in Hangzhou, China.

How did you get the job?

There are apps like LinkedIn and Handshake in Chinese markets for job applications. I scrolled through offers and applied for this role.

They asked, “How can you link your experience to the gaming industry?” I explained that games are part of sports, and that a lot of the classes I was taking at RST could prepare me for the job. Marketing, finance, event planning. I also talked about the badminton tournament I had been running. Those things all helped me get the job.

What was your day-to-day like?

At Electronic Soul, we’d have shows for some of the icons inside the games. We ran tournaments for the game they designed and helped prepare all the promotional materials. I was in the office for five days a week, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

We had a big comic show for characters in the games. It was held in place for a week; we spent a bunch of time preparing for it. We set up the stage for the actors dressed as the characters.

I was also involved in the designing stage of one of the games they were launching, while they were still designing the characters. So I helped do some background research on how the characters could act in the game and what would make them appealing. 

Any special takeaways?

Before I went to this company, I didn’t play games that often. The whole process of game design and launch, it was a whole new thing for me.

There are a bunch of different fields in RST, but any industry that’s more popular, I felt like I could grow a lot and it may be easier to get in.

Any advice for students searching for internships abroad?

One is, be more open. There are a lot of industries that we could go to, even though it’s not linked with our own major. People might think, how are games related to your major?

There are a lot of opportunities outside of the [U.S.]. Other countries are still developing, they have huge market opportunities for games and other industries as well. Don’t be shy or afraid.

I got another internship at Tencent, the biggest gaming company in the world, because they had a career fair. I flew there over the weekend and talked to the staff and got the job. Just be more active and try out everything.

What’s your experience been like here at RST?

The RST internship coordinator Hayley Hardin and advisor Jason Schroeder, they all taught us how to reach out to people, how to email and be active. Giving everything a shot. That mindset helped me prepare for my career and get job opportunities.

I’m passionate about entrepreneurship; that’s my long term goal. But in the short-term, I may go to other gaming companies. I’m interning at Tencent right now. After I graduate, I may use that experience to apply for a full-time role.

Juan Manrique, a senior in RST, got his Associate Degree in Computer Science from Harold Washington College in his home city of Chicago. A lifelong sports enthusiast and soccer player, he decided to come to Illinois for its sport management program.

At first, Manrique wanted to find a D1 soccer program to play for. But in his first summer internship outside of the states, he helped the program run behind the scenes.

What company did you intern for last summer? 

The professional soccer club Xelajú MC in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. They won the league championship back in 2012, when I was 10 years old. It was crazy seeing that on TV.

How did you get the job?

It’s a funny story, my grandfather was actually the president of Xelajú MC back in 1999–2000. But I didn’t use him as a resource at all. Instead, I sent the current president of the club a friend request on Facebook.

I basically told him, “I want to shadow you and help wherever I can.” I mentioned my granddad, and that both my dad and mom are from Guatemala. He accepted my friend request, and he had won the election to continue for a second term. At that club, it works like our presidential election, where they get elected to serve on new terms.

What was your day-to-day like?

When I arrived it was the offseason for the men’s team. The women’s team made the finals but unfortunately lost. I spent a lot of time learning different systems in the institution.

I was moving around the office and helping with whatever I could. I worked with the marketing and communications group, the media group of the team, even helped the utility group as well, making sure the players had their boots and their jerseys. It was pretty cool. That’s what made it interesting, was that every day was different.

Any special takeaways?

It’s a different culture, and a different way things are managed. Any resource we have here in the United States, it’s accessible. You have to work with limited resources, we didn’t have the best equipment, but we had to work with what we had.

The professor told me I was probably the first intern in the history of University of Illinois to do their summer internship in Guatemala. I told that to the soccer club over there; they had never had an intern in their existence. It was pretty cool.

Any advice for students searching for internships abroad?

It’s a great opportunity for people that want to take on a new challenge, learn about a different heritage and culture and see how things are managed. Businesses are managed differently in every country; every country has different standards, methods and techniques of how they should do things as an administration.

To do an internship abroad, you need to be familiarized and acquainted with what you’re gonna do. I had the luck that this is my favorite soccer team, and my family’s from there.

What’s your experience been like here at RST?

Doing the internship has opened my doors to working internationally, with them or another team, it has opened that path for me. I see RST is a community that’s growing; recreation, sport and tourism keeps exploding day by day. [The U.S.] is going to be co-hosting the World Cup. That’ll be huge. There’s a lot of opportunities out there, even remotely.

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