Summer Intern Review

I did my 6 weeks’ internship with EY UK at their 1 More London Place office. I enjoyed most of my time here in EY. Your experience will depend very much on the people who you work with. I worked with multiple managers/seniors and some are them are really exceptional. It is not all about work either, they had multiple socials (with other interns as well with your team members) and even clubs & societies which you can join during your time here.

I feel valued by my colleagues and my supervisors/managers always explains to me how my work fit into the larger scale of things. They were polite, courteous, and always try to ensure that I am doing fine in my work. One even treated me to coffee as a reward for doing a good job.

My supervisors and managers were very supportive and were ready to assist me if I have any questions regarding the task at hand. Even though they may be busy at times they would get back to me when they have availability. Rather than just explaining how to carry out the task at hand, many go the length of explaining the context of the situation and how the work that I am doing fit into the larger picture from the perspective of the firm and the industry the firm is in.

How busy you are will depend on how far you were willing to go. In my experience, I kept myself busy by asking for work whenever I am done with a previous assignment. The work given to me came with adequate time to complete them and I never felt stressed out by deadlines. I was always able to leave work on time to continue them the next working day.

Most of the work given to me were rudimentary and administerial. This is understandable as I had limited working experience in the field. Despite being so, it does not mean that the work carried out is not important. I mostly did financial statement tie outs by checking their accuracy and consistency. Only a few managers entrusted me with work that requires a higher level of thinking and problem solving. They took the time to explain and teach me on how to carry out these tasks and provided feedback on how I have done.

Being in work teaches you a lot of soft skills in addition to technical skills. Being only a 6 weeks’ internship, the experience leans more to the former than the latter. I was taught on things like coping with work stress, email etiquette, and building your own personal brand. All of these skills will be applicable throughout life and will not be limited to my time in EY.

The office in 1 More London Place is modern and it is an open plan office segmented by departments and sub-divisions. Your team members are usually around you and people of all ranks were accessible. The place is very productive to work in. There are isolated “focus booths” where complete silence is necessary such as conference calling and there are also larger roundtables around for team discussions.

The whole process was rather seamless and everything was well organised. Someone from the organisation would always keep me updated on what the current stage is e.g. which stage of the application process I am in, whether they needed any documentations from me, or what further steps I should do to complete this internship. However, there are some occasional mix up in communication as it not always the same person who got in touch with me.

The company invest a fair amount of resources to our development as talent and expertise is important for them. As they are trying to recruit the brightest and the best, it is sensible for them to do so to retain us. They had multiple spring programmes that supposedly precede these summer internship to provide additional insight about the company and its departments. They also taught us soft skills as mentioned previously.

You are very likely to be offered a graduate offer if you complete your summer internship well. The application process for a summer internship felt like a job application in itself. I have already received a graduate offer following my summer internship and I intend to accept this offer. The offer puts you back into the same team and division so it will feel just like a continuation from where you left off in the summer.

Colleagues were friendly and we were welcome to suggest events and activities to be held for all the interns in the office. We had a weekly experience sharing session amongst interns throughout the UK via online conference and we also had socials at the end of the internship to celebrate the end of this journey.

I worked in London and the cost of living here should be well known to anyone who lived in the UK. Rent is very expensive as I decided to rent somewhere close to the office so I could commute by foot. However, the salary you earn is adjusted for this slightly higher cost of living and you could still afford to socialise every once in a while.

Not applicable to me as I have not ventured out a lot at night. But seeing that it is London, I imagine it to be as lively as you can get anywhere else in the UK.

You were free to join club & societies as mentioned before, and once signed up, you could explore and see what activities were there to be done. There are occasionally also a few company-wide events which you could take part in. I would say there are many opportunities if you look for them.