IB graduate profile - Violaine Felten

Graduated from International School of Beijing, China, in 1997.

"I am an IB graduate from the International School of Beijing, China (Class of 1997). From there, I went on to earn a B.A. in Chinese and Management at the University of Durham in the UK, where I found four or five other IB students from Beijing, and met countless IB students from all over the world! My course included a year at the People’s University in Beijing, which was brilliant for our language skills and a memorable experience of living alongside cockroaches.

I am now in Paris (my “hometown”, as far as I have one!) working toward the equivalent of an M.A. in the economics of East Asia. I am looking for a job in market research, as I’ve realised after years of searching that it was the one career that could fulfill my endless thirst for discovery and new knowledge. I hope to go work in London for a good few years, and then perhaps go back to China, which I’ve become hopelessly attached to!

Indeed, most of my travels in the past few years have been in various parts of China. In particular, I spent three months last summer doing an internship as a researcher in an international law firm in Shanghai, which was absolutely fantastic on both a professional and personal level. I lived in a little back alley, where I was the only “foreigner”, but worked in the tallest building in Shanghai. I really got to experience the two contrasting facets of this amazing city: the charm and slow, rural-type life of the back streets (they sold live chickens in my street!), and the fast, dynamic business world which Shanghai is most famous for.

When I’m not travelling in China, I mainly enjoy cinema and theatre outings, and playing badminton. I volunteer in an organisation that provides counselling for victims of assault, and also teach English to French teenagers and adults. Most importantly, I love to hang out with my friends, and meet new people of varied backgrounds and experiences."