Intern Review

The internship was an enjoyable experience, and my team were welcoming and helpful throughout. It was definitely a good platform for my future career, and the learning experience was valuable. However, there wasn't much of an intern experience, in that after an initial meeting in London for all of the UK interns, there was no regional introduction for the Edinburgh interns, so we didn't get to meet each other, or get a tour of the office or an intro or anything like that. It was a shame that nothing was arranged for the interns in my office to meet, luckily we managed to arrange this ourselves and kept up throughout the internship which I think was important.

My colleagues were very inclusive and always made sure to give feedback on my work and thank me for what I had done, which was most useful.

You have a buddy who is relatively new to the company (mine has been there for a year) who will be able to help with any questions you have and just generally help you to settle in. As well as this, everyone is assigned a counsellor. This is a more formal process, and you give all your feedback throughout your internship to the counsellor, and have regular meetings with your counsellor to set goals and make sure you are getting what you want out of your internship. These are both very useful to have and mine were both very proactive in meeting me etc. which was good.

I was busy on the most part, however it can sometimes be hard to find work for an intern to do, and this meant that I sometimes didn't have quite enough to do. I was also left to find work reasonably independently by getting involved with projects, or getting to know people across the country who would send me work.

I was completely responsible for my own work, however the work was mainly internal projects and there was always someone to review my work, which I definitely found useful. I wouldn't want to be given any more responsibility than I was.

I learned valuable technical skills, particularly working more efficiently and to a higher level with Excel. On another note, I also learned about working in an office environment, interacting with colleagues across the country etc. which will be most useful for my future career.

The part of the office which I was based in was quite quiet, which is useful at times, however I would have liked a little more interaction and collaboration.

We had 1 day's induction in London at the beginning of the six weeks, which was very good in terms of introducing us to EY as a company and getting us started with our training. However, at this day I would like to have met other interns who would be in the Edinburgh office with me, but with over 200 interns at the event this unfortunately never happened. It would have been good if we could have been placed at a table together. Then our second day of our internship was at our regional office (so Edinburgh for me). My buddy met me and took me to my floor, but there was no induction or tour for all the interns in the office, or lunch organised or anything, so again no opportunity to meet. We reached out to each other and met a few days later, but it would have been nice to have had something organised, so as to feel more part of a group of interns in the office, rather than alone.

Everyone in my team did individual training sessions with me, about an area of the industry in which they had prior experience/knowledge. The summer internship scheme also arranged "lunch and learn" events where you received further, more general, training, such as how to be resilient in the office environment, and other relevant topics.

A job here would definitely be a great opportunity.

The social scene ended up being quite good, however this would completely depend on the group of interns you joined with, as we just arranged events and nights out ourselves.

Edinburgh is quite expensive to live and work.

Edinburgh nightlife is good, particularly in August when the Edinburgh Festival is on.

I played hockey for the EY team which was fun, and other opportunities arose which I'm sure would have been equally good.