Financial Planning & Analysis Review

My internship started of rocky, but I then got used to the jobs and responsibilities that I had and I then started to tailor it around what I wanted to do. This made it a lot more enjoyable. The fact we had 45 interns on site made it a good social scene too

Throughout working here I have felt valued, you are given a high level of responsibility in the role which isn't something i'd had before. The people from the shop floor to the senior leadership all had time for you and would give you a hand if needed. You are a core member of the team and not 'just an intern'.

I was given support throughout my work placement and my manager was there for guidance whenever needed. It was good to have a mentor who was very close to the work that I did so that if i had any technical questions they could be sorted quickly. The Intern Committee also helped out a lot too.

At site in Finance we have a very monthly / quarterly rhythm, so leading up to the month end and the first week of the month were both pretty busy, quarter ends even more so. This meant a few late nights but my mentor always offered to give me a lift home so it wasn't a problem. The weeks in between you had your normal responsibilities but it meant you could do more project based work in this time.

From day 1 I had a lot of responsibility which was overwhelming at the start, I made that known to my mentor when I was stressing a bit and we managed to sort some stuff out. I am the main point of contact for all my work and the reports I produce are sent out to senior leadership. After the initial month I really enjoyed the responsibility and took on more as I went on.

The main skill that will help me with Uni & working life is the work ethic that i've gained in my role. I will hopefully stay this proactive in Uni which will definitely help. My FP&A skills have come on leaps and bounds which will definitely help if i go on to work in the Finance industry.

My office was largely very quiet, mostly just being me and my mentor with the senior leadership walking through for chats. I think i'd have struggled if I didn't have such an engaging mentor, we got on really well which definitely helped. If I wanted I could just take my laptop and work in another office with some interns which i'd do if noone was in mine.

The internship was set-up really well, we had an internship structure that made us do curriculum: on job training, online learning and presentations. We had a three phases, all used to develop skills in and around our role, as well as a cost out project. The internship was also good as we had a handover with our old intern where they explained our roles and what / how to do it.

In terms of peoples time, they invest a lot into you. There were engaging training days in Six-Sigma, Project Management etc. The curriculum was also a really good way to invest in us, it made us learn about the company as a whole and not just our job. Financially there wasn't much, trips out etc, but we organised that ourselves.

Working for GE is very appealing due to the broad amount of work and the different locations that they work in. I'm interested in applying to the FMP as you get to live in 4 different countries for 6 months each, rotating through different financial roles. Cardiff was nice but not sure if i'd live here long term.

At the start it was busy going out every weekend with a big bunch of people. After a few weeks it got smaller as less people were interested in it but we still had a good group to go out with. We had intern football, meals etc too. With their being so many people there is bound to be someone wanting too do something

Compared to where I live in the South East, Cardiff was surprisingly cheap. Rent wasn't bad and was comparable with my Uni, pints were cheap as were most of the nights out. Its probably the same as anywhere, you'll have some places charging more or you can go cheaper if you want

If you want to go out you can, the clubs aren't amazing but loads of pubs you could go to if you wanted. Being a big city I did think it would be better, its not a Bristol or Manchester by any chance. Was decent for a friday or saturday night though

Like said before, there was always something to do if you put the idea forward with their being so many people. There wasn't loads of social stuff organised by work, but you could do maths mentoring, STEM, engineering projects etc on the academic side. Social side it was mainly left up to the interns which wasn't a big deal