Actuarial intern Review

I really enjoyed the internship overall. The office was well-situated, the staff were friendly, and the work was varied enough to make it interesting. In a short amount of time, I felt like a valued member of the team.

I liked the fact that I did feel valued within the team. Initially, I thought that the interns would be placed at the bottom of the hierarchy. However, this was not the case at all. We were all looked after very well - for example, we were treated to a couple of free dinners; free tickets to the SIAS boat party; and one of the partners personally came up to us on the last day to say farewell despite his busy schedule. This, I thought, was a very nice gesture.

All the staff were very welcoming and helpful whenever I had a question. There were times when they were busy and were unavailable to answer questions, but this was not their fault. What I liked about the firm was that you didn't necessarily need to ask your mentor or supervisor for help - many other people were willing to assist you in the office if they were available.

There were the odd occasions when I had no work to do because I had finished everything, but most of the time this was easily fixed as long as I sent an e-mail asking for work around the office. Overall, I thought the balance was about right: I had enough time to think about what I was doing, whether I was doing it correctly and to check through my work through at the end of each task.

I think the level of responsibility given to me was suitable and standard for an intern. For most of the work that I did, I had the option to either ask as many questions as I wanted or to work through it all entirely by myself. The work would then be checked by senior colleagues. In this way, my work formed the preliminary part to each task, but it was still important as it was mostly client work.

Throughout the internship, I felt like I had learnt a lot. At the beginning, we received many training sessions on some of the different type of work that we'd be doing, and this was later consolidated through actually doing the work itself. With most of the work, getting solid experience was key e.g. transfer values. This work has helped me tremendously in understanding the pensions sector, and it is all very relevant to my degree as I currently study actuarial science.

The general atmosphere was very friendly as I said before. There were two parts of the team: the East and the West team. As with any office, you always have people who work solidly throughout the day and those that take some time to tell a few stories or whatnot. I have to admit, there was plenty of time to have a few laughs with your colleagues, but that is such a crucial element within a dynamic yet fun working environment.

I thought that the firm did a great job in organising all the training sessions, the social events and the work for the interns. There was never a moment where I thought that organisation needed improvement. My only criticism was that sometimes there wasn't enough work to go around for all the interns, but they couldn't really control how much work comes in sometimes. We also had a 30-minute presentation to work through by ourselves whenever we were short on work.

I thought the firm made a significant effort in welcoming us into the office and providing us with a well-rounded 8-week internship that covered different areas of actuarial work such as trustee consulting, investment consulting and longevity. On our Induction Day, we were given a very comprehensive folder explaining a lot about pensions work, which was very useful. Throughout the 8 weeks, we also had two review meetings to measure our progress during the internship.

A graduate job offer would be very appealing. I would definitely give it a lot of consideration if I were to be offered a full-time position

This is London we're talking about, so there was always a lot of things to do, ranging from the SIAS boat party; the SIAS actuarial talk; cricket; football; netball; or just the numerous options of pubs down the road. Cheapside is a great buzzing environment in which to work.

We all know London is a very expensive place to live in, however, the firm did its best to accommodate us in subsidising various social events.

The nightlife was great - there's never a dull moment in London. There are loads of pubs, restaurants etc on our road or on nearby roads. It's very centrally located, so you can get to most places on the tube within a short amount of time.

Yes, as mentioned before, there were events such as the SIAS boat party; SIAS actuarial talk; and various sporting events like cricket, football, and netball.