Summer Intern - UK&I Audit Review

Overall this internship was a great experience. It gave me a real insight into what it is like to work for EY and also what it is like to work for a large company in general. EY is a big company and so there were many interns and I made a lot of good friends who I am still in contact with. EY arranged lots of socials for us so that was nice to be able to do things with colleagues after work. The work itself was challenging at first (I had never done anything like it before) but got better and better as the weeks went by. It was interesting to be able to work with so many different clients to get an idea of what their companies are like as well as just seeing how EY works.

Everyone was extremely nice and I found from the start that I felt welcomed in the company. People were very appreciative of the work I did and seemed to honestly value it. The problem was that at times there was not much work available and so I was sometimes left for long periods by myself with not much to do; however this was fairly rare.

I had never done any work like this before and so needed a lot of guidance on how to go about completing the work (especially at the beginning). All of the supervisors were extremely generous in the amount of time they spent helping me to understand how to do this work and this investment on their part meant that I was then able to produce a good quality piece of work because I fully understood what was going on. In terms of pastoral care, everyone is assigned a 'counsellor' who is someone in your department who helps you through the internship and is there to give you advice whenever you need it. We met regularly and she was able to help me with any problems I had. It was good to be able to have this supervisor to ask for advice about any part of the job rather than just my assigned task.

Most of the time I was the perfect level of busy with hours being fairly light but at the same time I always had something to be getting on with. There was a short period however when I was not assigned to a particular job and this was quite boring as I had a few days when I pretty much had nothing at all to do. I tried hard to find work from various colleagues but ended up having a week in which I did very little. As I said though this seemed to be a one-off and in general there was a good balance of work.

I was given a fair amount of responsibility. All of the work I was doing were genuine pieces of work which would have been done by another employee if I had not been doing them. This was good as it meant I could really get a feel for what EY does rather than just doing menial tasks to pass the time. I was also given some whole projects to get on with where I was in charge of a whole section of the work. This was challenging but also rewarding and I was given a lot of help along the way.

My job at EY is fairly irrelevant to my degree and so I will probably not use the skills I picked up until after finishing university. However later on in my career I think the skills I have learnt at EY will be really beneficial. Aside from the technical side of the work (which in itself will be useful), EY trained us in how to work in a corporate environment and it is this which will be particularly useful when working in any job in the future.

Good atmosphere, a nice buzz about the place. All of the interns met up most days for lunch which we had outside by the river, that was really nice.

Very well organised. The induction in the first week included a lot of different activities but this was organised so that we could all experience everything. The only part that was slightly badly organised was the assignment of work which meant that at some times I had very little to do. Aside from that it was seamless.

Very much so. There were many optional training courses that we could sign up to and we were also given opportunities such as shadowing a partner for a day, and taking part in 'Lunch and Learn' sessions where you attend a phone conference call during lunchtime which teaches you about something new.

Very. I have been offered a graduate job with the firm and I am planning on accepting.

Extremely good. Aside from the many socials organised by EY, the interns met up most days for lunch and we went for drinks every Friday after work. With so many of us it was very easy to make friends and I am still in touch with a lot of people. EY organised a leavers ball for us on our final day which was great fun. We got to stay in a hotel and we all went out after; it was a great night.

London is an expensive place, but in my eyes it is often worth paying the price to be in such an amazing city.

We were near the centre of London so it was great. Plenty of different kinds of places you could go to.

EY has many sports clubs and also networks for it's different types of employees. We also did regular socials both organised by the company and or our own accord.