Flyingstart, Nottingham university Review

I study for 12/15 ACA exemption exams at university and go on placements for half of each year of the degree. On placement I work in assurance where I am treated as graduate level. I complete lower level audit work and report back to my incharge.

As the degree involves university work and placements, it has improved my time management as I am revising for an exam whilst completing audit work. In addition, as I have real work experience, I have developed communication and active listening skills. I have also honed my Microsoft excel ability and am able to construct a concise and informative report on my audit findings.

I enjoy the programme a lot. The main thing I enjoy about the programme is the unique mix of work and university. It is great to have exposure to a work office for a few months and then go back to university and focus on passing the exams. The main thing I don't enjoy so much is how much more difficult the ACA exemption exams are compared to normal University exams.

Largely, I do not feel very valued by pwc. There is a high staff turnover rate and the resourcing department do not really seem to care about you as people. If they want you to travel 5 hours for a client on short notice, they expect you to do this or they will replace you with someone who will. Within the audit teams howver I have found that the job leads are very supportive on large and do make you feel valued.

My programme is very well structured - I am at university for one semester and on placement for one semester per year. This is very well balanced and really allows you to experience the best of both worlds. Compared to other sponsored degree programmes, it is more university with work on the side.

On top of the aca modules we study at university (particularly the assurance modules), we have a week of pwc training at university before we all go on placement each year. In theory thus training is good but the teachers are very boring and unsupportive and the content is even worse. We get a lot of support from university staff when on placement, however the pwc liason for our course is awful.

We are given people managers and buddies when we go on our first placement and these are our first port of call for support and reassurance. I have found my people manager in particular absolutely great in terms of supporting me through tough times with central resourcing.

We are paid around £5000 per placement (around 11 weeks work) and we are provided accommodation near the office or £40/week to live with family or friends and commute in. I found this very generous and met my costs well.

There is a social committee in each pwc office, which organises events such as the Christmas and summer balls. In addition, badminton tournaments, curry nights and salsa dancing)(to name a few) take place throughout the year that you can get involved in outside of work. Pwc is a rather social firm.

Yes

The client exposure that you get is great, and there is a broad selection of clients to choose from. In particular, this flyingstart sponsored degree programme is great because the degree is 4 years and you graduate being part qualified with 12/15 aca exemptions. You then only need to complete 3 more exams whilst you are working full time. You are therefore fully qualified in a total of 5 years.

The main thing is to know the pwc competencies and have at least two examples which directly demonstrates each. My interviewer was very interested in my reasons for applying to pwc and making sure that these were genuine (eg desire to make audit partner, not just to get experience and then move on).