Summer Student – Actuarial & Investment Review

The day-to-day varies massively depending on which particular team needs things done. Generally, things are done on a series of Excel sheets but sometimes goes beyond this to include some research and presentations. Some of my highlights in terms of tasks that I have done are: - Writing a research piece on investing into water as an asset class, with the long-term view of it being published on the website as a blog. - Filling out two quarterly Investment Monitoring Reports, which are sent to clients and give them details on how their investments are doing and if anything notable has happened with their fund managers - Calculating transfer values for various schemes, and making a transfer value calculator spreadsheet template for a particular client

General industry knowledge is a big one. I came into the internship having very little knowledge of the actuarial and especially the pensions world, but I have built up a lot of knowhow and feel comfortable discussing those topics now. In terms of skills, I have learnt a lot in Excel in way of new functions, but also just becoming more efficient with what I already know.

A decent amount. Due to the nature of pension schemes, the majority of work is done around the start of the year, end of tax year, etc. and therefore there was not so much to go around in July-August, which has left a lot more routine tasks rather than ones you can claim ownership of. Regardless though, I can feel that the team has tried to include the interns and have given some tasks that we are responsible for and are not just routine.

I did not need a lot of support/guidance, but when I did ask, I had a mentor for the actuarial and investment side, so I had people to rely on. In general though, people in the team are very happy to help even if the work you are doing is unrelated to them.

Very friendly and chatty. A lot of team events and people in general are happy to have a chat and get to know you, and it has been a great environment to be in.

It's been great

Yes

Be authentic and personable, show that you are willing to learn. They're happy to help people learn, you just have to show that you are willing and able to.