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I found it a huge learning experience which was also enjoyable and satisfying for the most part! The scope of tasks on offer is enormous, as WTW works with a huge network of clients and you feel like you are a part-time consultant for multiple firms rather than being an employee of a single company.

My colleagues were extremely friendly and approachable, and treated me as a member of the firm from day 1. Whenever opportunities arose in their work where I could help out, they would ask if I was interested to be part of a new project and send me emails with detailed instructions I felt like the work I did was valued, as it would be taken seriously like a piece of work done by a regular consultant at the firm.

My buddy and manager were extremely supportive and helpful, particularly during early weeks when getting to grips with office life—how to check into and book desks, sign in to your desk-phone, the procedure for taking days off. They were also very helpful (as was everyone else in the office) when I faced technical difficulties and wanted some aspect explained to me more carefully. When tasks were delegated to me instructions were clear and well-explained most of the time. On those rare occasions when this was not the case I found it very easy to find someone on the relevant client team and get them to run through the task with me!

During the first week, most of the time was spent socialising, meeting different people in the firm and learning the basics in densely packed training sessions—so that was very packed and structured. From week two onwards we had much more flexible choice in work, and could take on as many (or as few) projects as we wanted to. Fortunately this was a particularly busy period of time for the client teams at Willis Towers Watson and I was fully immersed in the busy life of an Actuary, taking on over 10 different projects at one time.

Quite a lot of responsibility was given right from the offset—we would do the work that new graduate recruits at WTW would get involved with when they join. Usually at WTW work needs to be done, checked and reviewed; a three person process which minimises risk of undetected error reaching the final draft. As an intern I was the ‘doer’ for many calculations and often when I would complete a piece of work that required a deliverable, provided that my work was accurate, it would then be sent out to the client with no further changes from the checker and the reviewer!

I progressed from being a barely functional Excel user to a much more confident one in the 8 weeks at Willis Towers Watson, thanks to the on-the-job training required to deal with many of the projects I was part of. The London office Excel champions were extremely helpful at solving my technical problems and teaching me new tricks on how to be more efficient. Other skills that came naturally from the role were teamwork and communication skills, we took part regularly in project meetings, emailed client team members on a daily basis.

Everyone was super friendly, from new graduate joiners to senior consultants with 20 years of experience in the business, all were approachable and easy-going, and would answer questions patiently most of the time! Even if they were too busy or unable to answer a particular question, they would refer me to someone who could help me.

The application process was extremely rigorous and well-set up, and this quality was carried through in the actual internship. We were placed into 4 initial client teams as soon as we joined and assigned a buddy and a line manager—they were the first line of contact if I had any problems/queries. My buddy was very helpful, showing me excel shortcuts, explaining complex pensions terminology to me and making me feel welcome by organising lunches with other colleagues.

I felt like everyone in the firm who delegated work to me invested, to some extent. They invested their valuable time to teach me how to do a new task, which would take longer to explain than for them to complete themselves, but the benefit was that I could learn and progress to tackle similar tasks with much higher efficiency the next time I was faced with them. In this sense, the company was fully willing to train me well and allow me to develop, in return for better productivity and higher quality work produced by a more educated intern.

To me, the prospect of working at Willis Towers Watson in the future is very exciting! I will hopefully be notified in September if I am successful of obtaining a graduate position, and at the moment I’m expecting that I will take it and be coming back full time after next summer.

Willis Towers Watson’s Retirement division is extremely sociable and held many events during our time on the internship. There was a beach-themed party in a private terrace bar, and two sets of Friday drinks to celebrate the passing of the Actuarial exams. The interns had to organise a social as well—on our last week we ordered a huge number of pizzas and took prosecco to the park.

I found a place a 30 minute bus commute away from Holborn office—Shoreditch, and I paid £180 a week for rent, probably much more expensive than you’d be used to, but for London I wouldn’t say it was a bad price. Socialising was also pretty expensive; it is central London after all! Luckily interns didn’t have to pay for drinks when they were with colleagues.

High Holborn is a very busy part of London and there are plenty of shops open till late evening, with bars and clubs. It wasn’t uncommon for Willis Towers Watson colleagues to begin drinking after work in a nearby bar and then move on to a pub crawl/going out clubbing. You will never get bored of the nightlife in a city like London.

There were many sporting and social opportunities within the firm, these included Ultimate Frisbee competitions, held every Wednesday after work. These were great fun and we would travel together via train to a field on the outskirts of London and compete in a league with other corporate teams. I found this to be an excellent way to socialise and get to know people in my firm better.