So, that's it. My 12 week internship experience in the business hub of London is over. As I walked back into my home in sunny, sunny Cumbernauld, I couldn't help but think of the day I left and the excitement I felt as I loaded myself with all I could carry and made my merry way down to London to start what can only be described as the most challenging and life changing experience of my life. In hindsight I wonder why I wasn't so nervous about leaving home, but I guess that's one of the things I have learned this summer: You only really miss something when it's gone. And I guess I'll be saying that about London in a few weeks too.
Our final two weeks were absolutely packed. Apart from having to get our final presentation in tip top shape before the meeting with our executives, we also had to deal with handing over our project to the next person. Unfortunately, they hadn't been hired yet, which made things a tad bit more difficult from our end. So, in order to 'continue our legacy', as it was often referred to, we had to ensure that all of our data was easy to interpret and understand. We managed to put together a workbook detailing all of our analyses and how we achieved them, the next steps that the new hire should follow and a huge glossary of insurance terms that will hopefully knock a few days off of their initial learning process. (I tell you, if we had that at the beginning, we wouldn't have become Google's top users for our first week!) The pack also included a list of our contacts from the 12 weeks and a few hints and tips to avoid any embarrassing data analysis mess ups. Along with our database, we feel the pack will serve as a good starting point for our successor - but in case there's anything we've missed, we added in our own contact details for good measure!!
Another exciting part of our final week was our trip to the Lloyd's of London building. I realise that I mentioned a few weeks ago that we were going, but unfortunately, due to yearend financial reports being drawn up, we couldn't get our hands on anyone in the office to take us. So, as you need a member of Lloyd's to sign you in, we had to wait on someone with some spare time to be our tour guide. Luckily, on the Monday of our last week, we managed to persuade one of the employees from the marine side of the company, Phil, to take us. The building is absolutely incredible! Due to the high security at the front door (you don't get in without showing your passport!) they allow so many historical artefacts to be on show. For example, there are books on show that log all sunken ships dating from the 19th century, various paintings of the royals and honorary Lloyd's members and even a room that was reconstructed piece by piece from the dining room of a grand house in Wiltshire, England. This room was designed by a famous Scottish architect, Robert Adam, and so is called the 'Adam Room'. The outside lifts were something else too. They were the 'stomach in mouth' kind of lifts - not cool if you're feeling a little bit queasy - but still a lot of fun! It was definitely one of the most impressive buildings I've ever seen.
The rest of our week was filled with saying our final goodbyes to many of the people that we worked with. One of the evenings was spent with our CEO, Chris Giles and MDs, Sarah Lyons and Steve Smith. There was definitely a big difference between this meal and our first dinner with them in week one. You could tell that our confidence had grown and that we were a lot less nervous than we were before - I guess the 11 weeks in between definitely gave us a confidence boost! It was very interesting to hear their opinions of us, both at the start and end of the internship, and I'm sure they valued our opinions on the people we had worked with and on the company itself. It was great to hear that throughout our time with Giles, we received fantastic feedback from everyone that we were involved with - both internally and externally. I felt it was a nice way to reflect on our 12 weeks and quite a good round off from the company. But, our socialising didn't end there! The next evening we met up with Katie, her sister Chelsea and some Saltire alumni for drinks and swapping of stories. It was crazy to meet all these successful people who had once been 'this year's interns' and were now living and working in London. Scary to think that could be us in a year's time! The final day of our internship consisted of our big presentation, our evaluations and saying our last goodbyes! We were all really quite nervous about our meeting as there were 5 of the company's executives in the room - including the CEO and the Group MD. Although, I don't know what we were fretting about, as it went really quite well! There was a lot of discussion after our main presentation and I feel that we managed to get all of our ideas across very well and we were able to answer all the questions that were thrown at us! So, I feel it was a success and from the feedback we were given afterwards - so did everyone else!
Our evaluations from our supervisors came next and again, after being a right nervous wreck before, it also went very well. It was interesting to see what they had seen over the past 12 weeks and how their opinions had matched up to my own. I know I'll be able to use all the feedback they gave in the future and I'm so glad we ended our day with the evaluations as they allowed us to end on a high. After we gave our thank you presents to our supervisors and said our final goodbyes we went for a late lunch and went out for our leaving drinks with people from around the office and I can tell you, there were definitely some tears on my part! So, I guess that's all my stories. I'm sure most of you guys are all finishing this week or there about. Hope you enjoy the final push - make it a great end! Susan x