Actuarial Trainee Intern Review

I was made to feel very welcome throughout the internship and was given lots of support with any jobs I had to do. From the first day I was made to feel as one of the team and was given responsibility for the work I was given.

Anyone who gave me a job or task to do made the time to explain the job thoroughly and was willing to answer any questions if I had any. Once a job was completed a thanks was always given which was nice.

As already mentioned a job was always explained thoroughly, including not only what to do but why it needed to be done. There was always someone close by who was willing to help you on anything if you got stuck. I was actively encouraged to ask for help if needed and not to just sit there trying to solve a problem for a long time.

In the first week or so the office was pretty busy so there was a sense of needing to get the work done instead of showing the interns how to do it. However, as the weeks went by and I became more competent at the jobs that were coming in my workload picked up, which was good. I had a group project with 3 other interns to be getting on with, which is what I did when I had no office work to be doing.

For the work that I did I was given a fair amount of responsibility to get the job done. As with all work at Mercer no sole person does a job from start to finish as the work is checked by others at numerous stages, so even though you had the responsibility to do it right, there was always someone else who would check it at a later date. I was also given the task of updating the monthly summary statistics sheet which many people in the office use when doing calculations, which is obviously important to get right.

I believe this internship has significantly developed many skills that will help me in future life. For example being able to work with different people on different jobs, working to deadlines to more advanced excel skills. All in all it has been a good opportunity to develop skills that you cannot learn in a class room or lecture theatre.

The atmosphere in the office was pretty laid back and relaxed most of the time. I was lucky enough to be sat with people of a similar age (early to mid 20s) and so found we had stuff in common and could have a laugh. All the people I met were really nice which made the internship a much better experience.

The first and last days were held in London and these were organised well. There were very few hitches with my start in the Leeds office either, although the security passes did take a while to be processed,

I took part in a number of online courses in things such as Data protection and Money Laundering. My colleagues often took the time to explain a job in detail for me and answer any of my questions, which was important for my understanding.

From what I have seen many of the graduate positions go to former interns so from that I would say future employment prospects look pretty good,

Every Wednesday after work me and couple of the graduates there played 5-a-side football with other people from the surrounding businesses, which I enjoyed a lot. Also, on the second week to celebrate exam results me and the other interns were invited out for drinks with some of the graduates, which was a good opportunity to get to know some of them better.

I got the train in to Leeds everyday, which cost around £7.50 per day, which isn't too bad. However as I didn't live in Leeds its hard to comment on the cost of living there. I guess its quite average for a big city though. The football pitches that we booked were quite expensive though.

The nightlife in Leeds is really good. However, commuting in to Leeds everyday and not living in meant that I didn't really experience the nightlife too much,

As discussed I played weekly football. Aside from this there wasn't much going on.