Summer school intern Review

as a summer school intern my role involved shadowing and assisting the audit team at an onsite audit and interacting with the client in a professional manner.

I feel that I have developed many skills over the summer school; such as the ability to form better interpersonal relations with clients and colleagues, a greater understanding of terms used in accounting and audit and how to complete several tests among many other skills. However the most important skill I have developed is only starting to flourish, I feel I have developed a basic understanding of audit and each day when attending the clients I have learned the skills to perform new tests, use new terms and more importantly, have been told the reasoning's, uses and aims of these to further my understanding. Specifically, I have been introduced to the way in which BDO conducts audit and the practices involved, I have already found myself adapting to this and using the same kinds of table designs, formats and headers that I have seen on the previous year’s audit almost automatically.

The thing I have enjoyed most about my time with BDO is experiencing the people, from friendly clients to the audit team it is interesting and motivating to see their enthusiasm for work. There have been more than a few instances when members of the team have been excited about completing a section or test and even been excited about being able to explain accounting terms and practices to me so that I can grasp them correctly. I really enjoyed all of my tasks and was very excited myself once I finished a task or section and gained a great feeling of pride and accomplishment. With every new thing that I have learnt I desire to learn even more and my appetite for knowledge has only grown during this experience.

I have felt very valued by BDO and welcomed by everyone, I was fully involved in meaningful tasks with the rest of the team and given lots of feedback and felt comfortable enough to ask for hep or clarity

the induction to the programme is excellent, on the first day all summer school interns meet in London and laptops are distributed a general induction takes place, on the second day we are shown around the local office and have a more detailed induction and the support and organisation throughout the rest of the programme is exemplary

everyone was very accessible and I felt like there were no silly questions, everyone was happy to be patient with me and explain things again if I didn't understand

I received a lot of support before the summer school and someone was always there to answer any queries and I felt very welcomed into the business, I also received financial support to cover expenses

travel costs could be claimed back and you are given £200 after completion however it was not stated whether this was intended for food or loss of earnings or simply a reward, this could have been better identified

we were told about the many activities that the Manchester office had however none of these were happening during the two weeks so therefore could not attend but there is a programme that is similar to msn where you can talk to people and social events could be arranged through this but I felt as though there wasn't enough time to have social events after work as it was tiring during the day but I did not mind this as I really enjoyed it

Yes

because they are such a welcoming and friendly company who really cares about the people and are also such a talented group of people and supportive

research the company and industry very well before your interview, try to use key terms as showing your understanding will be impressive