Data and Analytics Intern Review

I very much enjoyed my time at PwC. I lucky enough to be heavily involved in a project I was very interested in and was able to use my time at the company to develop my skills in multiple areas, particularly in programming. Everyone was welcoming & friendly and I always felt that my input and opinion was valued by my team.

Once I had been assigned to a project, I was well looked after by the other members of my team. I was given clear goals and targets, plenty of time to learn relevant skills and was trusted enough to work on my own section by myself. However, before I was assigned a project, I could often feel underused.

My managers and supervisors were always easily contactable and had no problems answering any of my questions. If I didn't have any work to do, they would recommend learning resources that I should take advantage of and when I was on a project, we would have daily meetings to present our work and provide clear direction for the rest of the day which I found to be particularly useful.

The amount of work I had to do would vary quite a lot between weeks. Once again, it depended on whether or not I had been assigned to a specific project or if I was on the bench working on smaller jobs. Typically, I would not be that busy on the bench and would spend a lot of time using company learning resources but when I was on a specific project I would be more busy. Despite this, I never felt overworked or too busy.

I spent most of my time working on a larger project architecting a network for later company use. While on this project, I was allowed to "run free" in my own chosen section and do research and make contributions all by myself. It was not lost on me that the contributions I was making were entirely my own and would be built on substantially in the future which was a rewarding thought.

Over the course of my placement, I have learnt a substantial amount of coding and programming in addition to presentation and communication skills. As a mathematician, I intend to use these coding skills a lot in my future studies and I am quite pleased to have had the opportunity to improve my presentation skills as it is not something I often get the opportunity to work on.

Working in technology is noticeably more laid-back than in other sectors. There was no expectation to conform to any dress code unless you were meeting a client (which I did not) and the office had an open-plan, flexible structure which meant you could choose to sit where you wanted, with who you wanted on a day to day basis. All of this contributed to a comfortable and friendly atmosphere.

There was no rigid structure to the internship. We had three days of general training (which could have been better organised) and then we joined our new teams with a buddy who would look after us and organised projects for us to join. The work you could end up doing varied a lot depending on the team you were in and the projects you were working on, a lot of which was out of your control. This meant that you had to look for things to do yourself and I spent the first two weeks without any work "on the bench". It did feel a lot like actually working at the company would as opposed to being given 6 weeks worth of "work for the interns" however.

We had full access to all of the company's learning resources like their Udemy account which I used to learn how to code in Python amongst other things. We would do the same jobs as graduates would be expected and so were expected to learn about topics and how to use certain tools on the job.

Having spoken to many people on the graduate scheme, I feel that there are lots of possible avenues to go down in Data and Analytics. There are lots of opportunities to work on a variety of projects and most joiners have a good work-life balance and a clear career path.

There were 18 other interns working in various other departments in the same building in my intake. We all met initially on the training placement so most of us were friends by the time we started working. We would often go out for drinks together after work and meet up for lunch at some of the nearby restaurants.

Working in central London, the cost of food and drinks around the office when socialising could be very high. Typically, I would bring my own lunch or go to Tesco to keep costs down as eating in the canteen or going out could be expensive. I did not rent accomodation specifically for this internship but spent approximately £30 a week on commuting to and from the office so I was not too concerned with costs but if I were to have rented, I would be concerned about covering costs with the pay provided.

I did not go to many places other than a few bars around the office for after work drinks but from what I experienced, they were very nice. The office also has a good central location so it is easy to reach just about anywhere from it if you wanted.

From what I saw, there weren't many activities or social events organised by the company to get involved with as an intern. I did receive quite a few emails inviting me to events scheduled for after my placement had ended. For the most part, it seems that you had organise these events between yourselves