Flying Start Degree programme - Associate Cardiff Review

As an auditor we go to different clients to audit their financial statements. You work as a team so have regular catch up meetings. Generally the work itself consists of obtaining listings from the client, picking samples and asking the client for evidence. You then check the evidence agrees to what the client has put in their financial statements and investigate any differences

This degree programme is very unorganised. Having 3 short placements over 3 years of the degree is not helpful either at work or university. It would be better to have 2 5/6 month placements or 1 year long placement. You spend too much time moving all around the country. You get taught a whole university module before you start placement in September but don't get examined until the following January, in the mean time you are working at a minimum 9-5:30 5 days a week so there isn't much time for revision. When only at work for 3 months, the first month is spent learning how to do things again and the last month is spent getting ready to finish (especially when we finish placements in December) so there's only really 1 to 1.5 months of decent experience. With the stopping and starting at university its hard to build relationships outside of the course. You can't get involved properly at university societies (such as joining a committee) because you aren't at university for a whole year. There is a lack of support and information from PwC across the degree. I didn't find out the start date for the last placement until a couple of months before starting and I didn't find out the end date until I had already started.

There is a lack of support and information from PwC across the degree. I didn't find out the start date for the last placement until a couple of months before starting and I didn't find out the end date until I had already started. They don't provide help or support through the process of moving offices after the degree is finished. Feedback from interviews is appalling and not constructive. Whilst on placement, the people in my office have been helpful and been able to coach me through the work, even whilst working from home. However the student recruitment team are not helpful or supportive.

The university is mostly helpful and supportive. I have had some really good lecturers who are willing to have meetings, mark past exam papers and in general just try to help you out as much as possible. However there are also some terrible lecturers who couldn't care less if you pass or fail their modules. My personal tutor wasn't overly helpful with problems and was much more a go sort it out yourself rather than here's what you can do and here's how I can help. There are some lovely personal tutors who are willing to listen and sort out any problems, unfortunately I was not lucky enough to get one of these.

Most of what I have learnt at university has not been applied in my role of PwC. Learning about the financial statements and the rules of how to include the items in them and how to account for them I have applied, as well as some of the background knowledge into Audit and Assurance. However many of the other things I have learned at university has not been relevant to the role as an auditor.

No

They are increasing pressure on quality whilst still expecting the audit to take the same amount of time with the same amount of people. The first instance for coaching is to look at what was done in the previous year, which doesn't help when that task wasn't completed in the previous year. They don't explain why we do tasks when you ask for coaching.