Benefits Intern Review

I was kept quite busy all the time and I felt well respected from everyone. All my colleagues took me and my work seriously and treated me as if I have been working there permanently like them. It was an amazing opportunity to meet colleagues from all levels and some really nice interns too!

I was given the same pieces of work as the ones given to first year trainees and not the really easy tasks. Everyone was really friendly and happy to assist me with the challenging tasks and answer any questions that I had, no matter how busy they were.

Even though my line manager was really busy she spent the time at the beginning of the internship to set some goals with me and she advised me on how to achieve them. Half was through the internship she gave me feedback on my work and she also organised a final feedback session towards the end of the internship to talk to me about next steps. She was quite approachable during the internship and made sure she answered all our questions regarding technical things such as our leave at her earliest convenience.

During the first week I was not very busy and we were all given the chance to settle in and organism ourselves at our own pace. As time went by I was getting busier though as more of my colleagues got to know me and give me work. I really appreciated the fact that most of them asked me if I had capacity before assigning me a piece of work and both my mentor and buddy discouraged me from staying longer than 17.30. My manager also made sure that my work was varied and I was not doing the same thing all the time and also that the work was shared equally between the interns and that all of us were exposed to the same variety of tasks. Even at the time when my workload was quite low I had the chance to work on our intern project for which I was responsible to manage my time and make sure I spend some time on it and meet the deadlines.

I was quite responsible for the work I carried out especially when it came to preparing presentations to be delivered to clients and it was up to me to make sure they looked professional. Of course nobody expected me to do everything on my own and even though my opinion and recommendations for certain ways of presenting or calculating things were really welcome the people assigning me the job were happy to suggest methods of tackling that task. In addition, every piece of work that I did was checked by someone and reviewed by someone else to make sure no mistakes were made and If they spotted I mistake in my work I was responsible for correcting it; nobody intervened with my own pieces of writing. This was really important as it showed my colleagues respected my work and it also allowed me to learn from my mistakes and understand what went wrong so that I wouldnt repeat it.

I learned a lot of technical things about pensions and the use of specialist software for calculations and this will definitely be really useful once I start working as an actuarial trainee. I also gained a lot of transferable skills which I can apply to any job and even at university; I got a taste of how it is to work in an office based environment and deal with your colleagues, organise your time. My communication skills were highly improved especially through the conference calls that I had to do with other interns of my project groups in offices across the UK.

Everyone was really friendly and welcoming. You could easily to talk to anyone about any questions you had and even people of high levels were quite approachable. A lot of socials were also organised and all the interns were encouraged to participate in them.

The internship was well structured and we were told from day 1 what would have happened during our time at Towers Watson. Feedback sessions were organised, as well as software training and our line manager cooperated with our mentors to make sure everyone was busy doing some real work and that the work was varied and evenly shared so that all of us would take a taste of what it is to work in Benefits. I also liked the idea that we were invited to a technical lunch where we had the opportunity to listen to some professional presentations about some current legislation issues and specialized software.

We had 3 induction days when we had the chance to do some team building exercises and also do some presentations. Especially in our office we were trained on the software we used and we were also given on talk on Pensions from the very start so that we get an idea of how pensions work. In terms of personal development, the company had lots of online tutorials and training guides on Excel for example that we could read and practice on if we wanted. It was also nice that we had several broadcasts about all the different lines of business in the company that we could participate in and get to know a bit about the other lines of business, apart form the one we worked in.

I was fortunate to get a job offer after my placement and as I enjoyed working in the company both because the work is interesting and challenging and because my colleagues have been really friendly I will accept the offer. Apart from that, Towers Watson offers a generous study package and a lot of support from graduates who are trained and this is very important too.

Most of the socials were organised by our colleagues who work permanently in the firm but the interns were always invited and we all became good friends. By the end of the internship, the interns organised a goodbye night out and it was really nice to see lots of our colleagues there.

I worked in London, really close to the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey which made the cost of living high but there were a lot of shops and restaurants close to the office such as pubs and a shopping center at Victoria with reasonable prices.

There were a lot of pubs and many bars; we met there every Friday after work. We even had the opportunity to go there for Qualification Drinks when the actuarial exams came out and some of our colleagues qualified as actuaries.

A lot of social outings were organised every week such as pub visits, the annual boat party and a night at the zoo. We were also encouraged by our colleagues to participate in sports activities and join in the company's teams cricket, basketball and netball matches.