Î÷¹ÏÊÓƵ

The summer internship was really fun and exciting. Over the 6 weeks, I have been able to learn about how audits are carried out and more general about the PWC firm, people and culture. As well as working on FTSE 100 clients which gave me a great insight in large businesses, there were many socials and events, a personal highlight of mine was the AGM event.

From the first day on my client, the team made me feel very welcomed and had given me tasks to carry out. This made me feel very valued as I felt they trusted me enough to take on this responsibility and help complete parts of the audit work. In addition, we would all sit together on the same table so it would make it easy to collaborate with the team and my opinions would be taken onboard.

There is a huge support system at PWC. Firstly, your first point of call would be your buddy (most likely someone in their first few years at PWC) – this person you can ask anything too and they help you to settle in and teach you all the important things. You also have your people manager who looks after your development during your time at PWC, they give you advice and help pave your career. Also your team manager on the client you working on, will be able to provide you feedback on the work you have done in order for you to grow and develop.

This is very varied depending on which client you working on and if it near end year audit. Normal hours are 9.30 to 5.30, but during end year audit my team was working till about 8/9 in the evening. As interns, I would just work normal hours. In terms of actual work, I would be busy some days and very quiet on others. I’d say during my internship there was even split between busy and quite days.

During my placement, I was given a significant amount of responsibility, I would be assigned to tasks that I would complete and be coached on, also I would be speaking to clients on behalf of PWC. These tasks were highly significant as it helped to attain important information for the team, therefore the work I was doing contributed to the overall completion of the final audit of a client.

Carrying out audits, highly increases your skills in excel spreadsheets, but apart from that I wouldn’t say that it would help me at university. However, the skills and knowledge I have learnt about audits will defiantly help me in my career. This internship has given me a headstart into assurance and the learning curve has been quite steep, also I have gained vital insight in the operations of a large FTSE 100 firm.

The general atmosphere was very relaxed and fun. From time to time, people would have causal chats which makes the work less stressful and more enjoyable. You are able to choose where you would like to sit in the office, there is more sociable areas with large tables and individual desks if you prefer to do some focused work.

The internship was highly structured and organised. You would get your schedule long beforehand, so you could prepare well before starting on new clients, or if you had training booked or even important events. I never felt lost or didn’t know what I was doing at any point of time during my internship.

PWC invests a lot into its employees in terms of personal training and development. As well as online e-learns during your whole time on the internship, we were taken to a 3 day residential site where we were assigned tutors in our specific fields to give us the basic background information and skills to perform well during our internship.

How appealing are future employment prospects within the organisation? Employment prospects within the organisation are great. As long as you are able to demonstrate willingness to learn and ambition you will be able to convert your internship to a graduate role in your chosen field. It may be slightly harder to change departments for graduate offer, but still commonly done.

The social scene was great. At least once a week there would be something on, with a variety of activities. As interns we would all normally go out together to have lunch, meet up for drinks during the week, and even organised days were we went to watch movies and play few sports i.e. ping pong.

Living in London can be very expensive especially for Î÷¹ÏÊÓƵs but my home is only 40 min away so I didn’t have any living costs. Going out in London is quite expensive as well depending on what you do, but there are many free things you can aswell for socialising.

London Nightlife is great. There are so many options and choices for everyone’s taste be it bars, pubs, clubs etc., you can never get bored in London. In the evenings, if you are keen on sports, there are lots of sports centres where you can join and have regular weekly sessions.

Plenty - dragon's den project, volunterring, events organising and much more