Catastrophe Risk Analyst Review

I really enjoyed with time with WTW. The team I was working with were fantastic and very welcoming. Various activities and networking events were also planned throughout the internship with other interns, other business units and also senior management.

In my last week I received feedback from all the people I had worked with. I was pleased to hear about what they though I had done well on and how I had been an asset to the team during my 8 weeks. They also provided some areas for improvement, which I thought was very fair and constructive.

I was trusted to get on with my work independently, which I liked, but it was also made very clear that I could ask as many question or for as much help as I needed. This was not just from my direct line manager, but also other managers and colleagues I worked with.

There were some days when I had loads to do, but it was not so much that I could not manage my workload and there was always someone to help me. In the first 2 weeks, I was working on my independent project about 90% of the time, which was sometimes a bit frustrating if I wanted to break up my day a bit.

I was given much more responsibility than I was expecting. I was allowed to manage my own calendar and decide how to prioritise my work. I was also given some client work to do independently as well. In both cases I was initially shown what to do and then I was expected to give regular progress reports or seek further help if needed.

I learnt a new computer programming language and got exposure to another, which is particularly useful for my degree. Also a large part of the independent project involved research and data analysis. I will be able to use the skills I gained whilst completing this project for my final dissertation project.

I really enjoyed working in the Ipswich office. It was very relaxing, friendly and welcoming. Whole teams would often go off for coffee breaks together and eat lunch together. I went to the London office about once a week on average. It was much more fast paced and I didn't enjoy this as much.

The independent project was very well outlined and I had weekly meetings with my manager to update him on my progress and discuss my ideas for the next steps. Aside from the project, the rest of the internship was very much guided by me. My manager set up business unit introductions and networking sessions for me and arranged for me to be involved with some client worked based on what I had expressed an interest in. The only negative was that there was nothing for me really to do on my last day and half and my team were really busy with deadlines.

They took the time to do some training with us for some different models used regularly in our teams and also a computing programming language. A lot of the training materials we were shown came from the graduate program and I know from speaking to some graduates that they are given quite a bit of support during their 1st 2 years in terms of on the job training and also studying for professional qualifications.

I really liked my internship and thought that I had a really good overview of what a 'typical day' would look like. I also know from speaking with graduates that the majority of the interns from last year were offered graduate positions. If offered something I would not need to go through the assessment centre or interview again. I hope to hear back from them next week.

We would go for lunch together as a big group with all the interns plus their teams. Whenever we were going into the London office, we would co-ordinate trains as well and travel there and back together. We also sometimes organised things outside of work, with other members of our team and by ourselves.

I chose to live in Colchester and commute to Ipswich as it was cheaper and better suited for my situation. But I think even Ipswich was not too expensive. I don't really drink so I'm not sure what the night life is like, but we were to London fairly regularly. Work paid for open day return tickets so you could go out in London after work if you wanted to.

Again I don't really drink so didn't actually go out.

We were always invited to team outings and company organised events. During the 8 weeks, there were 2 lunch time talks set up by the Young Professional Network group and also 2 summer BBQ/parties - one of which was in Hyde Park with people from the London office.