Sarah's NYC Summer

After a long weekend with my family, I wasn't too excited to head back to work, but luckily I had some things to do. During this week I was mostly focused on walkthroughs, meetings with the client to discuss and understand the processes and controls they have in place. I went through the prior year workpapers to get a better understanding of the walkthroughs and compiled a list of evidence that was obtained in prior year that would probably need to be obtained this year as well. On Wednesday we had our annual team meeting. Our engagement team went over things that happened in prior year that went well and also some pain points and how to improve. They also talked about a tentative schedule of the audit and the importance of finishing the planning portion of the audit before busy season begins in January. Even though I am only here for the summer, I got a good grasp on what the rest of the year looks like. I had to leave the meeting early because I had an intern volunteering eve...

Coming back from the Fourth of July break was still a bit slow. A couple of people were back from their vacations, but there were still a good amount out of office. Things started to slowly pick up at work. I was assigned more workpapers and had some event on my calendar to look forward to. Wednesday was a pretty busy day. It started off with a partner/intern roundtable. All of the insurance interns sat around 6 tables while 6 partners went around to each table and had a conversations with us. The partners talked about diversity and inclusion, committees to join, advice for standing out during the internship, transitioning to full time, and the insurance market. I learned about the partners and got a clearer idea of things to expect during full time. That afternoon was the insurance market practice meeting. It was two and a half hours of leaders in the insurance practice talking about the previous year and what we learned and advice and tips for the upcoming fiscal year. It was coo...

Week four started off with me exhausted trying to recover from my long weekend of walking, so I wasn't the most energetic. On Monday the team sat together for the day working on some controls tasks. It was nice to be sitting with everyone again, even if we didn't talk much. I also enjoyed getting assigned some work. On Tuesday and Wednesday I got assigned a couple of tasks that took me a couple of hours to complete. On Thursday and Friday no one had any work for me to do, probably because everyone was getting ready for our week-long firm shutdown the week of the 4th of July. So, I took the opportunity to learn more about the Insurance practice. I read about how climate change will affect the industry and about the processes of insurance and the difference between health insurance and healthcare. I feel like I gained a better understanding of the industry and will be able to relate that to the work I do. On Thursday I had lunch with a first-year associate and talked with him a...

On Friday, June 21 PwC celebrated Promotion Day firm-wide. It is a celebration of everyone who is getting promoted. I went last year as an Elevate Participant but this year I felt more apart of the celebrations. The day started in Madison Square Garden with a big presentation about how far PwC has come this year, including lots of prizes, the PwC band, and Kenan Thompson! Before heading to MSG, I met other Insurance interns at Starbucks and chatted with them before heading to the event together. I stuck around with this group for the rest of the day's activities. After MSG, there was a huge block party with free food and drinks, and then after was a smaller party just for the Insurance practice on a rooftop garden bar. It was fun to talk to interns in my practice that I haven't met before. No one from my team ended up coming, but I still had fun just hanging out with the interns. That night, my best friend from high school flew in for the weekend, and we had a very jam-packed...