Trustee Consulting Review

Really enjoyed my placement, learned a lot about many different areas of the business with work which pushed you, however there was always someone to answer questions. Throughout the 8 weeks I feel I have grown in confidence in doing differing tasks and this is due my enjoyment of it. Along with learning various different new things, everyone seemed friendly and was up for a chat about anything. Everyone was flexible with the time needed to do work and praise was given if a job was finished quicker than expected.

With the work I did I feel people appreciated it and if I did a good job often more would come from that person which would be nice.

Someone was always readily available to answer questions, and this was a great benefit when I was finding a task difficult. People would come back and give me feedback after the task was over also, hence meaning my work would be improved in the future and I knew where I was making mistakes. A big thing seemed to be learning from the mistakes made, especially when working out transfer values for clients, as various inflation and interest rates carried over, for example when using the annuities spread sheet with GMP.

My workload varied day on day depending what other work people would give me. It was good that there was scheduled work to do throughout the course of the internship, as otherwise at points I may have got slightly bored with not enough to do, however, as it was there was rarely nothing to do. Even if I went through a half an hour period with little work given to me I always knew I had two long projects that I could be getting on with for the end of the placement. This seems a good idea.

Throughout the internship, I have been given various amounts of responsibility. Without ever feeling as though you have to do something without anyone else's help, you are given responsibility to meet deadlines and make sure the work is done to a good standard on your own, and then someone else can look at that, make changes and give you constructive feedback regarding the work you have done. I also had the responsibility to check work for other people with them listening to my work, and using that giving me more responsibility to make sure what I did was correct.

I feel I benefitted massively from this experience. Having not used Excel since school, this experience has taught me many new way to use it, and a different technical insight into it. It has also given me a look into the working environment and how being an actuary works. I have improved my report writing skills by seeing how many other people have their own, personal writing styles and how to interact with clients. Moreover, I have had various different training sessions in day to day basics of actuarial work, and therefore I feel I can use these things I have learnt in the future.

I had a really good time in my office. People obviously focused on their work to start with, however there was a nice atmosphere in the office and people often stopped to have a rest and a chat. Often people seemed to have a laugh and a joke about something going on in the office. After people went on holiday, they often brought in sweets, chocolates, cakes, all sorts of various different treats, and this meant for a happier atmosphere in my opinion in the office going forward, getting more people happy and talking

My placement was very well organised. The first two days of the internship were held in Liverpool, with a lot of training being conducted there, and where I met the other interns. This was well set up with all the interns being put up in a hotel close to the office. After those first two days we went to our separate offices, and upon arrival there were already training events in the calendar to do, and therefore an easy start point for me to meet people and learn more about what I would be doing and the business I was joining.

I feel the company invested a lot of time in me, as other students came and gave me lessons on how to use various different things in the office and trained me on v8 and other excel apparatus. In addition, other people could have done the work I did quicker, however people were willing to put in the time and effort to make sure I understood it before doing it, rather than just being told what to do and to get on with it. Development wise, BW helped me to get better at different facets of work, for example transfer values, for which the difficulty of the ones I received went up as I got further into the job.

Hopefully good, however it is too early to say.

The students at the company all seemed to do various different activities together and they were very inclusive for everyone which was nice.

For me personally, the company was 15 minutes drive from where I live, therefore I personally had very little cost and all my friends live in the same area. The cost of living is quite middle of the range in general, nothing like as expensive as London, however slightly more expensive than some Northern areas. Going out would be quite cheap with there being various food outlets in the town centre and a flat to rent from someone would be relatively cheap so I would have to rate this area as good from living and socialising.

Having lived here my whole life the town area is enjoyable if not for everyone, for example if you have a firm group of friends you can go out and have a really good night but if you don't know the people as well it is slightly harder. However the main city near here is Birmingham which has a really good nightlife and the cost of getting there is not too large. It is also relatively cheap, considering the amount of people who visit Birmingham every Friday and Saturday. I personally would recommend it to anyone.

BW put on a football competition in the summer which is quite competitive and heavily attended by people, including interns. There were also other times to go out with other students working at Barnett Waddingham and take part in other opportunities. In addition to this, when I was there, we had a sponsored picnic where you get to meet everyone and have food outside when luckily the weather was good, which for an intern was great. From this all the proceeds went to a charity also.