MES Network Engineer Review

As a MES network engineer my role involves travelling to various customer and Vodafone sites to either install or configure networking equipment for third party customers. The types of equipment that I typically use on a day to day basis are network switches, cabling including both fibre and copper, as well as access points and routers.

I have learnt a lot since starting at Vodafone, with my mentours always willing to share their knowledge to help with both work tasks as well as assignments. Before I started I didn't even know what the command line of a network switch looked like, but now I am able to navigate it with relative ease.

This program has been a great way to both expand my knowledge, get valuable work experience, and meet new people, both professionals and other apprentices. The ability to meet so many others within the industry I want to build my career in has made me feel welcome and helped me really enjoy my start at Vodafone.

I feel that in terms of splitting workload between study and work the split is fair and well structured, but the delivery of the learning content by the college can sometimes feel poorly planned, with feedback deadlines set before the delivery of some content relevant to the assignment we have set.

There is a wide range of support that Vodafone have on offer at no cost to employees, be it mental health support, money management training and support, as well as providing and "office in a box" solution to set people up to work from home more effectively with furnature and IT equipment.

We get regular Q&A sessions along side our lectures, allowing us to ask them any questions about previous lectures, or our currently set assignments. We can also do "formative" submissions, where we give our lecturers an early draft of our work to be reviewed before submission to make sure we give our best work.

I feel there has been a varied mix of content delivered, with not all of it having a direct relevance to my role, but it does provide a useful overview of the kinds of roles that I'll be intereacting with throughout my career. The relevant units we've done have definitely proved useful to my development.

There are a variety of extra-curricular activities available to get involved with, however many of them are located in London, which can make it difficult for someone such as myself who lives a couple of hours outside of the capital to attend, which can be dissapointing.

Yes

Overall they are an amazing employer to work for, with amazing oppertunities as both an apprentice or full time employee. They provide some very useful support, and all of the staff I've encountered have been friendly and willing to hand out any knowledge they've got to help support my development.

If you're worried about not having enough subject knowledge for your chosen subject don't let it stop you. The point of the apprenticeship programs are to give you all of the knowledge and support you need to succeed, which includes teaching you all you need to know to succeed.