Support Engineer Review

Within the first year I am based at Furness College where I have a set of lessons to do on Monday and Tuesday, then I am in the college workshops from Wednesday to Friday. The lessons that I do are Communications, Mechanical principles, Electrical principles, Drawing and CAD, Project, Health and Safety and Maths. The workshops that I go to are the mechanical, electrical and welding workshops, although the workshops are on a rotation so I only go to another workshop after each college term.

I have learned how to use a pillar drill, how to properly use a file, hacksaw and tap. I also have learned how to use AutoCAD and Inventor to make engineering drawings and 3D models

The business side of the programme has not been explored yet, and the college has been very unorganised, especially within the workshops because we had not been informed of what tasks we needed to have completed within each workshop until the first term was almost over. The confusion continued further because the information we were told changed often.

College has not been very organised in the workshop, although the lessons have been better

We have received varying amounts of support from the business, with information about the workshops taking longer to have any effect in college. When people mentioned that they were falling behind with maths, people from the business volunteered to help give intervention lessons to cover the content

This has already been mentioned in above questions

Most of the tasks we complete in college will help me understand the processes involved with making components, although it doesn’t directly help with doing my job role

There have been events during half terms to get holidays back, whilst also getting an opportunity to go into the business slightly to get more comfortable with what we will be doing once we are done at college.

Yes

Despite the difficulty within college, the apprenticeship will still provide an excellent opportunity to learn new skills.

Ensure that before applying, be aware of what will be done during the apprenticeship and have examples ready for the interview that links to the BAE behaviours and core values.