Summer Intern Review

I worked for a regional office, yet I was in the London top tier department, meaning that I got exposed to working with FTSE50 companies from the comfort of my local office. I did end up commuting to London a couple of times, but overall, I learnt a good deal about the company I was working with and honed my organisational and presentation skills.

The colleagues were the best part of the internship by far. Regardless of their seniority, everybody was very friendly and welcoming and made me feel at ease whenever I was interacting with them. They really did go beyond and above to offer me training and support, whilst never being condescending about it.

All of my seniors did their best to coach me and to make me feel confident enough to voice my own opinions. We were also working a tight deadline, but they were able to put me at ease and to make sure that the contribution I was making towards the project was meaningful in the end.

I had days where there was literally nothing to do, but also had some days where I was working 12 h straight. This might have been a special case for me, since I ended up working for a company whose fiscal year end was taking place exactly during my internship.

I was given a fair bit of responsibility. I had to manage client communications and relay them on to my team, whilst also communicating with numerous PwC teams from across the whole globe at every hour of the day. It was a lot more than I expected coming in for this internship.

I became better organised and a more able communicator. The most important takeaway by far was the importance of time prioritisation and the importance of collaborating amongst a team. I became more confident in my own abilities and judgements and learnt to voice them to my seniors, regardless of my junior position.

During the first few weeks the atmosphere was relaxed, but after more work started coming in, it did become quite stressful. The partners were working at the same desks as us, and thus we were constantly on our toes and trying our best to assure them that the deadline would be met in the end.

I was lucky in the sense that I got given work pretty quickly, but there were other interns who spent weeks without much to do since the company they were working for was just in the early pre-planning stages of audit. I do not know how they allocated which intern to which team, but in the end, there were some interns who came out of the experience having learnt more than others.

Since it was only an internship, the only "investment" was the internship itself. We were provided with access to modern offices and were given our own personal phones and computers to be used for work purposes throughout the internship.

I would work for them in the future, since I do really enjoy the culture of the company and they do seem very eager to invest a lot into new employees.

The interns in my intake were very friendly and sociable. We would go out for lunch every day during our break and find out more about what the other would be working on. For full-time employees, PwC did advertise the existence of many clubs and social activities, but those were not applicable to me.

I would commute everyday into the regional office, and whist I was working there, the costs were decent, but once I started working in London, the costs significantly went up. We would be given a dinner allowance, but that was not enough for a decent meal, but rather a very light snack.

Not enough time for a nightlife when finishing work at 2 am.

I did not partake in any such activities, yet there were some interns who did go and do volunteering work.