Vacation Student Review

On the whole I found the placement fairly enjoyable. The people I was working with were all extremely friendly and welcoming, and the work was generally fairly interesting.

My colleagues were alway happy for the work I was doing and extremely welcoming. While the tasks I was given were inevitably at the more basic end of the spectrum, they were always tasks which genuinely needed performing and the work was always appreciated by colleagues.

The on-site in-charges were always happy to help with any queries I had regarding the work I was being asked to perform, as were all the other members of the audit team. My performance manager was also always willing to help with more general questions, as was anyone else I asked.

I was generally kept suitably busy while out at clients, but when in the office often struggled to find work to do.

I was given a reasonable amount of responsibility during the placement. I was encouraged to talk to relevant client staff to find out the answer to issues that arose myself, rather than simply getting someone else to ask the questions for me, and the answers I reported back were trusted and not second-guessed.

While the skills I developed inevitably focused around accounting and thus will be of very little use for the remainder of my degree, they will no doubt be extremely helpful for a future career in the field.

While I didn't spend too much time in the office, the atmosphere there was friendly and welcoming. On client-sites the situation was much the same, if slightly less formal due to the much smaller size of the teams.

As a whole the internship was well organised, with my schedule of where I was going to be working already set out before I arrived. However the exact jobs I was to perform weren't organised in advance, and this led to some days where I had little work to do.

I was given instructions to perform the jobs I was asked to do, and was given opportunities to shadow partners in order to gain an insight into the higher level working of the company.

An interview was set up with a partner before the end of the internship and a job offer was received off the back of that. The internship is very much seen as part of the recruitment process, and so long as you perform well on the internship you should receive an interview at the end.

While due to the nature of all being on different jobs I didn't see my fellow interns for much of the time, there were several events organised to get together with them, and we got on well enough at these. Similarly, there were a couple of events with the staff as a whole.

Because I live in the area I stayed at home for the duration of the placement.

The office is situated in central Birmingham, and so there are a large number of pubs and clubs in the area, although how close they would be to where you are staying would of course depend on where you chose to live, as no accomodation was provided.

Other than aforementioned organised social events there was little scope for getting involved in activities as an intern. However there are several sporting and other societies which are well advertised for full-time employees.