Assurance Associate Review

I had a really great time at PwC. I got to work on a wide variety of clients as well as some internal tasks too. The staff were extremely friendly and I suppose the best bit was that I was given the opportunity to complete 9 ACA exams too as part of my placement.

Really good working environment with friendly staff. Working on away jobs, you get to bond more with colleagues, but even in the office, my intake as well as other employees were always willing to talk and help; even more senior members of staff.

Always willing to help when you ask for it. Regularly asking if you understood the work at great at explaining difficult concepts.

I was more busy that not, with something to do at any time during my placement. I was however given time off when I asked for it, although this it is rare to be given time off during busy season for a large client.

Given a lot of responsibility, most of it was as a result of asking for more work, but I was trusted with some important tasks with clients and even chaired a few meetings.

It gave me the opportunity to adapt to different teaching styles and improve on time-management during exam periods when we would be learning a few subjects in such a short space of time and little time to revise.

Although most of the time there was a good balance, the sheer amount of work to complete by certain deadlines meant that people were sometimes too busy to relax.

Since it was a large company that has had many placement students, they knew exactly what to do. The placement students were also doing the same work at the graduates so there wasn't too much differentiation bar a few extra conference calls with other placement students for feedback on our placments.

The ACA exams that I was lucky to sit says it all. The courses are very expensive and they invested a lot of time and effort to train us in order to complete the work to an adequate standard and also to have the technical concepts behind us.

They have offered me a job providing that I achieve a 2:1 in my final year at university. Many other placement students were given a similar offer.

My intake of graduates were excellent at organising weekly drinks or trips away after exam periods and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

It was in central London so prices were pretty high.

The local area had a few good places to eat and drink but most of the social events took place at other parts of London such as Bank and Mayfair.

There were a large variety of other opportunities, however some of them require a long term commitment and being on placement for one year limits the choice of opportunities.