Experiencing WSM: A Student’s View

The 3rd of August proved to be an unnerving morning for me. I woke up feeling rather excited; as a 16 year old who hasn't even finished school yet the prospect of a week of work experience at an accountancy firm made me feel rather important. Unfortunately, the morning was one disaster after the other.

My personal highlight of the morning's escapade was Google maps getting me hopelessly lost and then promptly losing signal so that I was left aimlessly roaming the streets of Wimbledon. Once I had finally arrived at the building, I was unable to even open the high security door into the office which was the final nail in my proverbial coffin of confidence, and when I finally appeared on the top floor of Connect House I was trembling with trepidation. I had heard a lot about ensuring people's first impressions of you are good at an office, and as far as first impressions go, it is fair to say that mine wasn't great.

However, upon my arrival at WSM I quickly forgot about the daunting morning I had just had. Everybody was friendly and welcoming (nobody told me off for being late which was a relief) and I had a full schedule for the week so that I was always occupied, which made the whole experience both more enjoyable and rewarding.

Throughout the week I performed jobs such as proof reading, writing property blogs, land registry searches and binding documents, along with a series of talks on what it means to be an accountant and the roles of each department within the firm. This has been a great opportunity to improve my IT and office skills, as well as developing my knowledge of the business world.

Despite more self-inflicted adversity succeeding Monday's mishaps, including accidentally getting on a fast direct train to Waterloo rather than a train which stopped at Wimbledon, I have had a thoroughly enjoyable time and I am extremely grateful to WSM for this opportunity.