assurance intern Review

I thoroughly enjoyed the internship at PwC, the work was well suited to my competency, but I was also pushed to learn more and complete harder work. Sometimes I found that there was not enough work due to the quiet period that the internship falls on, this I found a challenge, trying to find work to do.

Everyone at PwC is extremely welcoming and understanding. There is no assumed knowledge from them and no judgement. When I got things wrong they were very laid back an helped me to correct it with no pressure, and when I completed work well they were very positive and encouraging. The digital world that PwC uses - G suite, detracts slightly from the personal feel between colleagues but is necessary

As an intern almost everyone is more senior and so can supervise. Everyone gave me a high level of support and guidance when I needed it, but they were very sensitive to my abilities and so when I understood the job better they let me get on with it. I did find that my actual managers gave me less support than I expected, but this was easily supplemented by everyone else on the jobs

My schedule varied from week to week, and sometimes day to day. If I was at a client site, I usually had a lot of work to do and the work was well structured. Whilst at the office there were many times that I hadn't been booked to anything and I would need to ask round the office for work, this sometimes took the whole morning and was disappointing - but mainly due to the quiet period of the intake - Aug - Sep.

I began the internship with next to no knowledge about the physical work I would be doing, and as such the responsibilities I was given at the early stages was very low, as the internship progressed I was getting more and more responsibilities in line with my ability to the point when I was given work to do not usually undertaken by interns!

I learnt so much during my internship about the firm and the nature of the industry, but also about the industries I audited. I learnt some very useful research skills that will obviously assist me beyond my studies. As a Chemistry undergrad the main skills that will help me next year are the "softer" skills I have developed and time management, especially for my 4th year project. I learnt to plan for planning

The working atmosphere was great in our office, I think this is unique to Milton Keynes as it is a smaller office with a fantastic culture. Everyone is very relaxed and interested in their colleagues and "hot desking" helps to encourage this. The atmosphere is a good working environment were asking for help is very easy and encouraged.

Overall I found the internship was very well structured and had many features that gave a good overall picture of PwC condensed into 6 weeks. The day to day organisation was poorer, for me - although the other interns had a more organised time. There were many days were my time was not booked to anything.

The internship scheme at PwC is fantastic because of the level of training that you get. Overall PwC will be looking to offer the interns graduate placements, provided you do well, and so they invest just as much, if not more time and effort into you to encourage you to do well and hopefully want to return to the company.

Very appealing, I already know that they have offered me a job at the Milton Keynes office, I am thinking about trying to move to the Birmingham office, for personal reasons and absolutely nothing to do with MK office which I think it brilliant and very unique. Hopefully I am accepted to Birmingham.

During office hours we were very social - we would always have lunch together and would play table tennis (I think unique to MK). The office would also organise a few social events during our time, which helped get to know some more colleagues. After work however there was very little, many people lived outside the MK area and the night life in MK generally is lacking.

Getting a 6 week let was challenging and so I had to pay for it, but getting a longer term let would be cheaper in MK - it is definitely cheaper than London, but more expensive than I thought. In terms of socialising I was surprised how similar the pricing was to London

During the internship I never went out at night due to the poor nightlife. I believe that there is only one night club in the Milton Keynes area - pink panther's, which I have heard many things about... there are a good range of pubs and bars, but generally in my experience the nightlife was poor

Not really any opportunities, the office did organise an away day and office BBQ for everyone, but this was not a regular thing, there were little activities outside work hours. I did hear that there was football with the office, not sure if this was open to the interns or not.