PwC certainly has an outstanding internship program. Since the first time that we walked into this company, it was warm-welcomed, casual, but very professional at the same time. Even though the training session was rather short (only 2 days), it was packed with knowledgeable programs and the instructors was remarkable. Not only that they taught us technical skills in auditing, but also shared their valuable experience with us as well. We learned a lot from the training.
Despite all the positives, there are also some parts of the program that we want to make some suggestions. First, we think the assigned auditing group was rather random. The moment that we walked into the conference room in the first day, each of us were already assigned with a specific group, different type of businesses. We think that it is better to extend the training session for another day or two so that every intern well understood the nature of each business group and given the chance to choose the group that we are interested in. This way, in our opinion, would provide a more pleasurable experience to the interns, as they would get to learn about the line of business that they like and so would be more engaged to the work as well.
Second, although we were extremely positive of the buddy system at PwC, we believed that it would be better if our assigned buddies were senior auditors instead of the manager. This is because we think that the higher hierarchy of the position puts a slight barrier between the intern and the manager. We found that it is much easier to connect with the senior auditors due to many factors such as age, attitude and shared working time. In our opinion, the tighter relationship between the intern and the buddy would help us to learn more as it reduces the fear of raising questions about work or general experience of being an auditor. In fact, we believed that this is a perfect position because senior auditors already have enough experience to coach the interns. For this reason, we think that by switching from manager to senior auditor and having a closer working relationship with buddy would improve our internship experience at PwC.
Lastly, we also think that it would be a good opportunity to rotate the work between different companies if possible. This is to help us widen our knowledge in both auditing and business in general. To see and to venture in a new environment is always a good learning experience. Moreover, working on multiple companies will allow us to learn from the best practices of each company and to learn how the accounting are done or should be done under different circumstances.