Central Planning Finance Intern Review

I really enjoyed working there and would love to go back! I got on really well with my team so it was a pleasure to work with them. I also felt like my work was making a difference, rather than feeling like I had been given the work that no one else wants to do. It was also an interesting insight as I was able to see the financial information of such a large scale company.

I felt very valued by my colleagues. I felt like I was treated like one of the normal team rather than just an intern. They gave me difficult tasks which kept the job interesting, as well as expecting a lot from me, but they weren't so hard that I wasn't able to do them. It was a bit different doing the whole placement online, but I felt I was just as valued as if we were in the office.

We had whole team meetings twice a week where there was always an opportunity to bring anything up if I wanted. As well as this, I had a meeting with my manager and one of the girls on the team a few times a week where I had support for anything from the work I was doing to anything I wanted to ask about. I could message them about any questions any time as well.

It varied depending on the time of year, for example at the end of the financial year, or the end of each quarter, it would get really busy as that's when the lines of businesses and markets would be submitting their forecasts. At other times in the year it varied depending on what work people needed me to do. It was always fairly busy but never so busy that I would have to work outside of my hours.

My team was central planning, which is a team where each of the lines of business would feed back there forecasts to. This meant that I was given quite a lot of responsibility because I would have to create and roll over templates on excel which get sent across the business so they can be filled out. Once they are sent back, I would have to consolidate them into one file to be passed on to people higher up.

I gained a lot of experience using microsoft office, especially excel. This has helped in my modules where I use excel as I'm now a lot better at using pivot tables and formulas such as get pivots or vlookups. It also helped a lot on the finance side as I learn a lot better by doing things, and so using accounting and finance terms in real life helped me to understand them a lot better.

I never got to go into the actual office so I wouldn't know. On our zoom calls though it was a very friendly atmosphere. Whenever we had any meetings it was nice because we would have a normal chat first for example how we are or what we were doing at the weekend. After we'd had a quick catch up, we would then talk about work and everyone was very nice and accommodating.

It was really well organised by HR, especially as they were on-boarding everyone during the pandemic. Everyone was meant to join in July, and because there are so many interns, they schedule it into quarters so they they have a new lot of interns joining each week in July. This had to change when everyone was working home but it was still very organised when we had to join in September instead, and everyone was sent a laptop to their home ready to start.

Disney was really good with this. On their intern program, they host monthly tasks for the interns in order to help with development. This could include online readings, webinars or interactive zooms with people outside of the company. Topics included creating a personal brand, helping with time management, Microsoft office skills, and a lot more. They clearly care about the development of their interns, and full time employees also have something called D Achieve to help with development.

Disney doesn't offer a grad scheme and so I don't think I'll be going back straight after uni, however they did say that if you apply in the future, you are likely to be shortlisted because of the internship. I know that one of the girls on my team was doing her accounting exams whilst she was employed there so it's not necessary to have qualifications like ACCA before getting a job there in finance.

There's around 200 interns and so there's a good chance you'll find people you get on with. There is a group chat on Facebook which Disney creates so that you can find other interns before you start, this also helps for finding people to live with. Working form home made it harder to meet them but I know that in the office there's more socialising, and in normal times they put on events for the interns.

I lived in Clapham rather than Hammersmith so I'm not sure what the cost of living would have been like if I lived closer to the office. My rent was around £750 per month. As I said, I was working from home the whole time and so I didn't need to commute into the office. If I did, it's about £100 per month for a zones 1 and 2 tube pass, which is where Hammersmith is.

As we are during a pandemic, a lot of my internship was spent during various lockdowns. The internship is in Hammersmith and I know a lot of the interns enjoyed going to the bars in Hammersmith when they were open. I lived in Clapham for my internship and never needed to go to Hammersmith so I went into central London a lot which obviously meant the nightlife was quite lively. Clubs weren't open for the duration of my internship though.

Yes! The main thing I got involved with was a charity event called Moment Makers. Interns were put into random groups where we had to design and execute a fundraising event to raise money for MediCinema - Disney's partner challenge. It was a great way to meet other interns, especially as the whole time we were working online which made that difficult. It was also a great way to get exposure as we had to pitch our fundraising ideas to various people across the company like Deborah Armstrong!