Summer vacation student Review

I found the support network and organisation of the programme quite dissapointing, however some of the individual characters I met within the office were friendly and encouraging. The work I was given was at times very monotonous however I was not begrudging of this.

I valued the opportunity to be able to work with different managers, however there were less opportunities than I had hoped to really develop networks within the office. The first job I worked on for three weeks was rather stressful as it was not on schedule. This was unfortunate as for the first half of my internship I felt like more of a hindrance than a help as my superiors and team did not have much time to teach or guide me and hence I felt like I was simply getting in the way. However in the second half of my internship I felt more valuable as I was working in a pair with one other colleague on a much more organised job. I feel having a good/bad experience is mostly down to luck.

I felt the performance manager and buddy I was assigned to were both helpful and encouraging when needed. However I felt the programme was severly lacking in an overall supervisor as there was no one overseeing the programme in my office. An example of when this became a problem is when one job I was supposed to be assigned to for a week fell through because the audit manager had left the company entirely. I thus had nowhere to go and when I approached my buddy she was also unsure on what I should do except contact resources. Upon contacting resources they also struggled to find me somewhere to go and hence I spent the week helping out on odd jobs in the office. I feel having an overall supervisor of the programme in our office could help make sure that vacation students are efficiently assigned to appropriate jobs.

Throughout the day I felt comfortable with the amount of work I was given. I enjoyed the working hours which were usually 9 till 5 and I usually had enough tasks set throughout the day to fill this. There was one occasion where I was expected to work until 11pm on Friday and then got up at 7am on Saturday to finish at 12pm that day. This was a little irritating, only because I had forseen earlier in the week the work was not going to get finished by Friday (when my manager hoped it would). I would have preferred it if she had kept me later during the week to help her get the job finished, rather than make me work on the weekend.

I was given more responsibility than I expected and was required to converse directly with clients from the very start. By the end I was also asked to delegate tasks to others by email.

I was disappointed in the lack of training in any kind of technical accounting. I felt very embarrassed and inequipt when I was asked to engage with the client on technical issues yet had little to no knowledge of some of the accounting procedures I was inquiring about. I was appreciative when one of my managers took the time to explain some of the terms to me yet I was shocked that had I not sought out extra teaching from my manager I could have gone the whole six weeks without really learning how debits and credits worked. However the experience in working in a professional environment and interacting with clients gave me confidence and helped me improve my professional etiquette.

The atmosphere was friendly, however as I was out on jobs most of the time I found it difficult to develop good relationships whilst in the office

It was quite well organised however a couple of my jobs fell through because the manager had left the company. In this instance it was quite difficult for me to be assigned for another job as I was unsure who was responsible for me.

There was no training. I believe at least a little bit of training in the basic building blocks of audit would have been extremely useful as I found myself quite underprepared on my first jobs.

Quite appealing, I enjoyed working for them and am excited to accept my offer.

There were a couple socials held but they were only in London which is a bit far for me to travel.

Reasonable, not as expensive as London.

I didn't go out whilst on my internship, however I know the night life is quite good from previous experience in the area.

Not many that were available to interns. There was one end of month social however that wassail organised and good fun.