Summer Intern Review

I greatly enjoyed my time at Aon – I was given a wide variety of tasks to undertake and the experience provided me with a real insight into the day to day life of an actuary. I was also supplied with a buddy to guide me through the process, which I found to be very helpful.

I felt quite valued by colleagues however I did find it took them a few weeks to warm to me. This may have been because of the office size. I was delegated work by people from all levels from senior consultant to analyst and this made me feel like a valuable member of the team.

My manager did a really good job at supporting me. Each week, feedback sessions would be allocated within which we could discuss my progress and how to improve. She was very down to earth and kind and even attended a pub quiz that we had organised. I could relate to her in many ways and she provided a further insight into the day to day life of an actuary.

My workload depended on the day – initially it was quiet with only my buddy delegating me work but as I progressed and networked, I found more people were delegating me tasks. There were times when I had to work from 8.45 to 6 because of my workload and other days where I could leave at 5 because I didn't have much to do. Overall, it was a mix.

I was given more responsibility towards the end of my placement as the tasks I undertook became more client focused. In the beginning, I found I was doing the more tedious tasks like updating figures whereas towards the end I was dealing with material that was due to be sent to the client.

I learnt a lot about the pension's world and undertook a lot of CETV calculations. Specifically, I found out about annuities, interest rates pre and post retirement and mortality tables. All these skills will greatly benefit me in my third year of university as I take a lot of Finance modules as well as with the actuarial exams in the near future.

The office had a relaxed atmosphere amongst senior and junior colleagues. For example, on Friday's, a quiz would be sent round and discussed between colleagues in my section. There were also socials involved between different groups of colleagues e.g. the consultant development group as well as exam celebration socials. A lot of these took place in the pub so if you don't drink these can get quite boring.

The internship was relatively well organised – weekly meetings and catch-ups with my manager were set up early on as well as catch up sessions with other senior members of the team. We also had weekly lunch and learns organised by the early careers team which introduced us to other sectors of the business as well as administrative information.

I had one excel training session designed to introduce us into the corporate templates within excel. However, this was not useful as it was a few weeks in and by that time I had already figured most of it out for myself. If you are new to excel it can be difficult utilising it for work and I feel like I needed more support in this area.

Since I lived quite far (1.5 hour commute) from where I worked, I was not really partaking in any nightlife type activities as it would take me too long to get home. However, I have heard that the nightlife in this area is not good and there is not much to do.

I felt like the opportunities to get involved in activities outside of work were not severely lacking for females. The guys had weekly cricket and football organised whereas there was nothing like this for girls. I feel that this is an area that could be greatly improved within my office.