SIP celebrates ten years of summer interns

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Each June for the last decade, 12 university students have been chosen to participate in a summer internship programme that might change the course of their professional lives.

The annual Summer Internship Programme (SIP) hosted by Ace, HSBC Bermuda and Deloitte is now celebrating its tenth year — by the end of the summer 122 students will have completed the programme.

The ten-week, paid programme will see the students rotate between the three firms gaining work experience at three global giants in the insurance, financial and accounting industries. Many of the graduates are then offered full-time employment at the firms after they complete their university education. Currently four SIP alumni are employed at ACE, seven at HSBC Bermuda, and four at Deloitte. Others have gone on to successful careers in international business here and abroad.

Starting this week and running through August 10, the current interns — three men and nine women — will spend two consecutive weeks at each company.

At Ace, the students will get a first-hand glimpse into the world of re/insurance. At HSBC, they will tackle two projects focusing on social media and mobile banking. And, at Deloitte, the group will take on projects relating to investment fraud and will complete a mock audit.

Ten years ago, the original idea for the internship was created by chance during a casual conversation between the heads of Ace, HSBC Bermuda and Deloitte when they were all at the same social gathering.

It’s been going strong ever since with each year seeing around 30 hopefuls apply to the programme. The applicants are vetted through phone interviews and face-to-face meetings. Twelve are then chosen to participate.

“Ace, HSBC Bermuda and Deloitte take great pride in having led the Summer Internship Programme for the past decade,” said Samantha Froud, chief administration officer, Bermuda Operations, of Ace. “We have strived to make this programme one that would thoroughly prepare students for a career in business.

Each year, the particpants are divided into two groups to assist two local charities, this year being the Bermuda Hospitals Charitable Trust (BHCT) and Hilary’s Place, which was just started earlier this year.

The team assigned to the BHCT will design and implement a youth component to the organisation’s Island-wide fundraising project entitled “Why It Matters”.

The second team of interns has been assigned to Hilary’s Place, a charity that provides resources and a respite centre for family caregivers. The team is tasked with developing the organisation’s strategic marketing plans.

“By having the students develop our strategic and marketing plans we can now take a huge step forward in supporting our family caregivers, while giving the students an opportunity to develop an organisation from its earliest stage,” said Marian Sherratt, the charity’s project coordinator.

A number of past SIP alumni attended the kick-off event for the programme, including several from the project’s first graduating class.

Sharmini Samuels, who participated during the summer of 2003 when she was a student at the University of Western Ontario, said that the programme helped determine her career path.

“It was pivotal for me choosing underwriting as a career,” she said. “As a university or high school student, the fields of reinsurance, banking and accounting — you can look in from the outside but you don’t really get the first-hand experience. The programme was a great opportunity to experience all three of those fields in one summer — to get a clear understanding of the day-to-day work experience along with meeting some great contacts.”

Mrs Samuels now works for American Safety Reinsurance as a casualty treaty underwriter.

“It’s a prestigious summer job,” she added. “I don’t think there is any other comparable programme where you get to meet the contacts that you meet, have the projects that you get to work on and work at three different companies all in one summer. You’d have to essentially do three summer jobs to get the equivalent.”

And, if you think the students are fetching coffee and filing paperwork, you’d be wrong.

“It was the first summer job that I had that you’d work past your typical 9am-5pm hours. We came in on the weekends to finish up our project, which was Outward Bound, at the time,” she said. “It was hard but definitely worth it.”

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