Assurance Intern Review

I quite enjoyed the internship overall. In terms of positives, I feel that it was an excellent use of my summer (as I learned a lot in such a short period). In terms of negatives, there were significant periods of little-to-no tasks for hours at a time, which made it feel like my time wasn't being properly utilised.

Almost all my colleagues were friendly, professional, and immensely helpful in terms of driving the learning process home in a real-life situation. I felt like in most cases I was treated as a member of the team, as opposed to a hindrance that needed to be taught everything. However, there were one or two staff members who I felt treated me differently due to me being an intern (ignoring messages for days at a time, being short with me due to not understanding etc.) - although it was only in 1-2 minor cases.

Similarly to being treated well by colleagues, almost all managers I worked with were excellent in understanding my problems, and offering helpful solutions. However, in a similar vein to colleagues again, there were small cases whereby management completely blanked messages or queries for days at a time, which I felt was in equal parts frustrating and disappointing.

On the first few weeks, I was kept happily busy with constant tasks and feedback, which made me feel valued within the team and made the days fly by. In the final week, it was extremely slow, with only a small number of menial tasks set for me - which wasn't even just an isolated case, several interns felt the same.

I feel like especially on my main audit (which I was on for three weeks), I was given a lot of different responsibilities. Between working on different areas of the audit to client interaction, I had a good mixture of responsibilities both when on client-site, as well as in the office.

Although my degree might not be as applicable to the internship as others (with my major being in history), I still feel that a lot of the skills acquired in this internship will have strong applicability to things in my future (in an academic and professional sense). I learned a lot about working in a professional environment with a group of peers from different backgrounds, and how best to work well and integrate with a team.

Atmosphere overall was good, with there being no point in the whole internship where I didn't feel welcome within the office. There were several cliques of people that often sat together, but that wasn't to say that they weren't accepting of others sitting with them. The office itself is very modern and comfortable, and made me excited to come into work.

I feel like the internship was quite poorly organised in a lot of ways. Between there being poor communication between the interns and resourcing (often we'd be pulled on and off jobs several times a week, with no notice), and a general lack of information pass down (on our first days in the office, not even our buddies knew what was expected of us, as we weren't set onto clients) - I felt that the organisation was poor.

The company clearly invested a lot of time and money into us, despite only being here for six weeks. The initial residential trip highlighted this, with the company doing their best to make us feel welcome within PwC. Furthermore, the training offered was both comprehensive and well thought out, with the tutors covering a huge amount of content in a short time.

I think from a non-personal perspective, the prospects of working with PwC are strong. There are a lot of advantages to working within this company, and it has a lot to offer an employee. From a personal basis, I am unsure on a future in accounting, and as such the prospects aren't quite as appealing to me.

The interns would regularly sit together when in the office, and it felt like the chatter and interactions between interns were good (helped significantly by residential trips and day events which encouraged relationship building). Furthermore, we would often go out after work to relax after a hard day, which further encouraged this.

I am unsure of this, as I lived with family throughout the internship, but Leeds overall as a city is quite reasonably priced for a major city when compared to other areas such as London or Edinburgh. Furthermore, there is a lot to do in Leeds, including great bars and places to eat.

Unsure - didn't go out

Unsure - didn't get involved