GIP Shanghai FAQs

Well... people have been asking and I thought rather than just keep telling them the same things over and over again, i've decided to do up a GIP FAQs to ans any questions that they may have.

These questions are answered to the best of my knowledge

About work

Q. What companies are there? And what do they do?
A. Venture - Electronics, MAE, EEE
Schering-Plough - Pharmaceutical, CBE & BIE
Givaudan - Fragrances (Lab work), CBE
Emerson - Process Control Automation, CBE, MAE, EEE
CPG Facilities Management - Business, NBS & Engineering
Wilsonn Partners - No idea
Univac - Software, duh... computer engineering
Sulzer - Distillation and separation, CBE, MAE, EEE, NBS

Q. What is the pay like?
A. For those I know of:
Venture - 2.8k
Schering-Plough - 2k
Givaudan - 2k
Emerson - 3k
CPG Facilities Management - 2k (this one is i think)
Wilsonn Partners - No idea
Univac - ?
Sulzer - 3.2k (But have to pay for own lunch, But... comes with ice cream! 6RMB/Lunch)

Q. What do you do at Emerson?
A. Process Control Automation, not dealing with the actual process control but mainly doing the controller's panel design, instrument indexing, hardware and software, component design, documentation, visual basic programming, access, and a bit of weird stuff here and there.

Q. Which company do you think is the best? and why?
A. Depends on what you want. Though i feel Emerson is good, companies like Givaudan, Venture or Sulzer may give better work appraisals in terms of grading.

Q. Which company has good welfare?
A. I only heard from Sulzer, Givaudan and Venture but among theses, Sulzer gives a lot of free goodies like BOXES of peaches, mooncakes and stuff. Emerson has lots of stuff in the pantry and good food for lunch and dinners (and dinners are provided along with reimbursement of transport when you OT). The other 2 are just average

Q. How is the work environment?
A. Good, the colleagues are super nice and are always willing to teach, so long as you are willing to ask. Good supervisor also.


Accommodations

Q. How are the accommodations?
A. Not too bad... quite similar to HDB at home.

Q. How did you get the accommodations?
A. Through this company CPG Facilities Management, the one the GIP office in NTU liased with.

Q. How much do you pay a mth?
A. Per person, SGD 200/mth for 6 months. together with a 2 mth deposit so total is 1.6k for my whole stay (400 will be refunded if there is no problems with the house once we leave). An additional SGD 60 (one time payment) for internet set up & payment of bills services. Another 20SGD for internet for 6mths

Q. Are the conditions good?
A. Ya

Q. Is it accessible?
A. Next to Train Station (MRT), CPG does a good job in finding places near train stations

Q. How are the rooms?
A. I chose twin sharing, so we have 6 people in a 3 room flat with one living room, a small dining room and a kitchen + 2 toilets

Q. Is it far from work?
A. I stay at Pudong area, which is near my work place. so not that far. CPG will tell you how far your place is from work and will find you the best place to stay in. There are 2 main areas in shanghai, Pudong and Puxi. Half the companies are in Pudong and half the companies are in Puxi

Q. Which are is better?
A. Puxi has more of a night life and a whole lot of shopping. Pudong has a reasonable amount of shopping (less den puxi but still like the entire orchard amount of shopping). But my company is at pudong, cannot choose to stay in Puxi, too far


Food

Q. Hows the food?
A. A bit more salty, a lot more oily

Q. How much do you pay for food?
A. About 3RMB to 25RMB for a normal meal. 20RMB to 50RMB that for a good restauratnt meal. 50RMB for a normal buffet and up to 200RMB for a really good buffet. oh ya... a whooper costs 13RMB

Q. How's your company food?
A. I can easily say, one of the best in GIP Shanghai (but then... there aren't many companies to compare)


Expenditure

Q. How much do you spend?
A. Depends on how you want to spend, Budget you can spend about 100 to 150 SGD per mth, if you don't budget, i have heard of people spending up to 1.1k SGD per mth

Q. How come so much?
A. Shopping and traveling

Q. Hows the shopping there?
A. Good, if you come to Shanghai, let me know, I will pass you a list of good shopping places and the prices you can get stuff at

Q. Traveling?
A. Nearer places cost between 200 to 400RMB for a 1 day trip, 300 to 500RMB for a 2day 1night trip, and up to 1000RMB for a 3day 2night trip. My household is going Inner Mongolia for 5days during the break, the should cost us at most... at most 4000RMB.

Q. Groceries?
A. Carrefour, Our Lotus (like Sheng Siong) and a lot of mini supermarkets for all your needs

Q. Any others?
A. Bought an Iron with an Iron board, a set of cooking stuff (ya... i can cook a bit), hangers, clothes washing stuff like pails and detergents and other toiletries


Scholarship

Q. What about it?
A. Don't know, i didn't apply for it. But i know of people who applied and didn't get. And i dunno which part is the deciding factor


Weather

Q. Hows the weather?
A. Summer goes up to 40 degrees. Autumn is cooling, can be like genting so bring a jacket. Winter, haven't been through it but ya... heard its damn cold.

School

Q. How does the AUs work?
A. 6AUs of electives, can be made into 3-3 AHSS PE + GE/UE or 6AU AHSS PE or 6AU GE/UE

Q. What schools are there?
A. Fudan and Jiaotong

Q. Which one is better?
A. Ranking wise, Fudan is best in Shanghai, 3rd in China. Jiaotong is 2nd in Shanghai

Q. So?
A. Fudan you get to use the main campus which is quite cool and even has its own museum. Jiaotong is a branch campus.

Q. Distance from home?
A. For pudong people like myself, it takes about 2hours to get to either school so there isn't a difference. For puxi people, its nearby

Q. What are the school days?
A. Friday and Saturday.

Q. So many days?!
A. For Fudan, you can request to push the Saturday to Friday so you have a really packed friday but that means you can go traveling during the weekends. For Jiaotong, there are only Saturday classes for the 1st half of the sem.

Q. Exams?
A. I think Jiaotong has no exams but has essays. Fudan has 1 exam in which your batch will choose between 2 topics on which one you want to be test upon. Essays also are needed

Q. Any others?
A. I know Jiaotong brings their students to places like nanjing for travelling, Fudan doesn't but i still think Fudan is more fun. lol


Others

Q. Confirm can get GIP?
A. No idea, heard a lot of ppl got GIP, not sure if there is enough places for everyone but the sem 2 gip has 2 times as many space as sem 1 gip
I will update this once I can think of any other questions

Q. Overall how do you find GIP?
A. Fun


Well... I think thats all for now.