Actuarial Summer Student Review

I really enjoyed the internship, and believe it was very well organised. The atmosphere in the office was very supportive and friendly, and the work I was doing was interesting and varied. We were not expected to stay late or work at home which was nice and made the internship less stressful than others may be.

I felt very valued by my colleagues. I was introduced to everyone in the teams I was working in, and there were various social events that I was invited to in order to build relationships with other members of staff. Everyone was willing to answer questions if you needed help, and I felt I could do so as most members of staff were very approachable.

We were assigned 3 mentors between the 3 summer students. All of the mentors did their very best to help us when we were stuck or confused, which I really appreciated. We had 2 review meetings throughout the internship with our supervisors to talk about our progress and things we wanted to get out of our time at the company.

I had enough work to get on with, but I did not feel overly stretched. I think the balance was quite good overall, however at some points especially at the start of the internship I didn't have a lot to do, but this was not an issue towards the end when I had finished all of the training.

I believe I was given responsibility appropriate to my role as a summer student. A lot of the work involved drafting reports or inputting data which would then be checked by others - which makes sense as I would be uncomfortable being a new member of staff and being expected to get everything exactly right/understand all the work first time.

Going forward, I have definitely improved my skills in Excel and my confidence in a work setting. I have had the opportunity to do some presentations which has built up my experience for any upcoming similar tasks in my degree. The insight into an Actuarial job has been invaluable and has confirmed this is what I would like to pursue in the future.

The atmosphere in the office was very friendly and positive. Everybody gets on with work but you are able to talk. The company values include respecting and helping others, and this was reflected in everyone I met as part of my internship. If you asked for help, it was given.

I believe the whole internship was very well organised. There was a clear structure to the 8 weeks, and the work we were given progressed in difficulty as time went on. We were given lots of information and support regarding the assessments we needed to do as part of the internship.

There were a variety of different training sessions throughout the 8 weeks, and the company invested the time in giving you these even though we did not necessarily have permanent jobs. I was provided with some information of other internal courses you can do if you do join the company.

There were quite a few social events on while I was at the office. I was invited to all of these outside of work, and went for out for lunch once a week with the other summer students. We organised a social event ourselves, and sometimes went to the pub after work.

There were quite a few activities to get involved in, including inter-office sporting activities such as Netball and Football tournaments. Alongside these, there were team lunches and you could organise activities if you wanted to.