Chinese learner lands internship with telecommunications giant

We are home to the University’s Languages for All (LfA) programme which allows students to study a language alongside their degrees.

We were recently thrilled to hear that Karl Turnbull, an LfA student has won an internship with the largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer in the world, Huawei though the Global Opportunity Centre.

Computer Science student Karl will be travelling to China this month to start his four week placement.

He said, “Although it wasn’t necessary to have Chinese (for the internship), it definitely helped with my application. It showed my interest in the country as a whole; history, culture and language”.

Karl began learning Mandarin with LfA last year at beginner’s level. After taking it up purely out of curiosity, Karl has since found that he really loves the language.

“In China, it’s going to be useful for speaking to people, and practise will really help me remember the language better. I think people really appreciate it when you use even just a few words” he said. “As there’s not a lot of Chinese speakers in the UK and quite a lot of business opportunities in China, it’s a skill that will make me more attractive to a lot of businesses”.

Good luck to Karl for his adventures in China this month!

If you would like to find out more about Chinese you can either study it at undergraduate level via our BA in Modern Chinese or as part of the LfA scheme.