Shanghai
Locations / Asia

Shanghai

Spend a year inside a Shanghai startup while taking classes at Fudan University. You also build a business with your cohort and pitch it to an NUS panel, twice.

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  • Partner uni

    Fudan University

  • Format

    Full Year

  • Intake

    August January

  • Audience

    Undergraduates only

  • Ecosystem

    Consumer & web

  • Cohort size

    ~25 students per intake

About Shanghai

Rearrange your view of normal.

Shanghai is where companies find out whether anyone wants what they have made. It is China's financial centre and its largest port, which means capital and goods both move through it, and it is where foreign companies come to enter the country and Chinese companies go to leave it. A product that works here has been tested against the most crowded consumer market on earth, where a new brand can go national in a month and be gone by the next.

NOC students here have done market research at a consulting firm, marketing for a café chain, product development at a food-tech startup, and analysis at a venture fund. A lot of the work is on understanding what people will pay for, which is the hardest skill needed to build a company and one of the most difficult to teach or read about.

Shanghai does something no other NOC location does. Halfway through the year, and again at the end, you form a team and pitch a business to an NUS panel. You are not only watching someone else's company for twelve months. The entire cohort is expected to have built something of your own by the end of it.

Why Shanghai?

Test yourself in the most competitive consumer market.

Learn the commercial half

Products here live or die on whether people buy them. You spend a year learning one of the hardest skills in business. An opportunity most don’t get until they are founders themselves.

Classes at Fudan

You take entrepreneurship classes at Fudan University while the internship runs. Four of your thirty-six NOC units come from them, and the campus is a subway ride from most host companies.

You pitch, twice

At the midpoint and the end of the year you build a business with your cohort and present it to an NUS panel. This experience is unique, Shanghai is the only NOC location that does this.

Partner university
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Fudan University

You take classes on entrepreneurship at Fudan University while the internship runs. Four of your thirty-six NOC units come from those classes. The other thirty-two come from your internship.

Fudan opened in 1905 as the first university Chinese people founded for themselves, without a foreign mission or a government behind it. It has been turning out people who go and build ever since, including at least 14 founders of Unicorn companies.

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[Life in a relentlessinnovationand economicecosystem]
What our students say

"My NOC Shanghai experience was both enriching and impactful. During my internship at S-Tron, a startup event organization company, I developed strong problem-solving and people skills in a fast-paced environment. I was deeply immersed in China’s vibrant startup ecosystem, engaging with startups, investors, incubators, government institutions, and C-level executives from major corporations"

Headshot

Yang Xuejing

NOC Shanghai Alumna | 2025 | NUS Business School

Practical info

The things you'll need to know before committing to Shanghai.

  • Cost of living [ $$$ ]

    SGD1,600 a month

  • Accommodation

    NOC supports housing search. Students often take over the previous cohort's flat

  • Stipend & awards

    Most students receive an internship stipend from their host company. NOC awards available via Awards & Scholarships

  • Visa

    Chinese student visa. NOC covers the full application cost

  • Language

    English Mandarin

  • Climate

    Subtropical Humid

  • Time zone

    UTC+8

  • Getting around

    Metro on one card. Nobody needs a car

  • Assessment

    Three internship reports, plus two business pitches to an NUS panel

Curriculum

Faculty-mapped courses for NOC Shanghai: units, intakes, and academic structure.

Apply for NOC Shanghai

Rank Shanghai in your application. Note that NOC reserves the right to assign you to any available location regardless of stated preference.

Start your application