Actuarial Intern Review

I really enjoyed working here the office was a lot more sociable than I thought and my colleagues were all friendly and appraochable - even the more senior colleagues. Everyone works in an open plan office so there were a whole mixture of different people ranging from the interns to the partners. The work itself was really interesting although required a large amount of understanding I don't think I had initially, but I soon picked up. You can understand why actuaries have to do so many exams!

We were all made to feel very welcome on our first few days and although the work started off slow it was nice to recieve positive feedback on some tasks and to be given more work from colleagues who I had previously completed work for.

All interns are given a buddy (who is a colleague who has recently graduated) and you have a manager too. In our office we sat next to our buddies so it was very easy to ask questions if we had any. Our managers collected feedback from colleagues we had completed work for and this is reported back to you via a few meetings spread across the length of the internship, this was really useful and it was good to know how to improve.

At times it was very quiet but this was only for a couple of days out of the whole nine weeks. Normally I worked from about 8:30 to 5:00/5:30 so a typical normal working day. Although sometimes when it was busier I was in until six, but there was no expectation to do this. At quieter times we able to work on our CSR (charity projects) so there was normally something to do if we didn't have any acturial work to be doing.

Most of the work I did was calculations. This work was then checked by my colleagues and if correct was used in the actual advice sent out to clients. If my figures weren't correct we were always told and given the opportunity to correct this. We had a lot more responsibility than I thought we would.

If you want to be an actuary then this internship is ideal. There is also the opportunity of a graduate job at the end. Even if you are not successful in getting the grad job the fact that you have actuarial work experience to add to your CV should increase your chances of getting a job with another firm.

The office (Epsom) was a lot more sociable than I thought. A lot of cake and ice cream was regularly brought into the office and once during the Wimbledon Semi Final we had strawberries and cream!

It was organised well in terms of the initial three days being in London, but once you got to the office it took a while for work to come in. Our manager was very good at informing us of the structure of the internship and the different feedback meetings we would have throughout.

We had a three day induction in London, but only one day of this was specific to the role as an actuarial intern. The other two days were about our charity project. I would have preferred to have a few more technical training days however as I felt it was a lot to absorb in one day.

If i got offered the grad job I would definitely take it.

Yes, we joined at time when there were a large number of exam results released so it was very sociable at the beginning. There were also two subsidised social events (BBQ and comedy night) throughout the duration of the internship.

Quite pricey but it's Epsom.

It's Epsom... we would mostly go to pubs.