Technology Degree Apprentice Review

My week is structured with me going to University at Queen Mary London on Wednesdays and Thursdays and the other weekdays I’m working at GS. While at university I have tutorials for some modules, lectures and practical lab sessions for all modules. The labs make you use the knowledge learnt from lectures in exercises, coursework and tasks. In my department at Goldman Sachs I am working on projects, learning about the industry and meeting people either in the London Offices or over video/phone calls in other offices around the world. For my projects at work I am programming in Java most of the time and I also have regular meetings with people within my department to help me expand my knowledge and skills of the firm and programming.

The knowledge and skills learnt at university are constantly being put into practice at work to help me complete real work projects. The main knowledge and skills improved since being in the apprenticeship are my programming capabilities. This is because at work I am constantly programming and being pushed to expand my knowledge and skills to complete projects. GS also have a variety of training resources from online videos to wiki pages which is not only good for work but also good to help you study for university.

I feel like this is the best opportunity for me to gain and learn professional skills, attitude and knowledge etc. to work in a high quality business. I am learning new things every week at University and working in GS. The knowledge being taught at university is very helpful when doing projects at work because I am able to use the skills taught at university and use them in real life situations.

At GS I feel like I am treated the same as any other employee. Everyone is very friendly, respectful and always willing to help you if you are stuck on something or when you’re learning new things.

I feel like the programme is well organised and structured. We are informed very quickly and always kept up to date about news about the firm and university. At the start of the first year there were obviously going to be small issues e.g. communication from the university to apprentices because we were one of the first groups of apprentices to do a programme like this. These small issues however got quickly solved and we haven’t had an issue since.

The university is outstanding. The facilities they have are really helpful and can be used to complete coursework and also study. The lecturers are very friendly and are able to teach their subjects very well. They are also very willing to help you if you don’t understand something and they don’t mind if you want to meet with them to go through content which you don’t understand.

GS also have a variety of training resources from online videos to wiki pages which is not only good for work but also good to help you study for university. The people working at GS are also very willing to help you if you don’t understand content from work or from university. They are also very helpful as they have experience of coding and also done similar degrees.

It is a competitive salary

GS provide many opportunities outside of work such as volunteering work and sports clubs. I have done a few volunteering days and it is great fun as you get to meet people within and outside the firm and do things for a good cause. I’m also in the GS tennis team which is great fun as you get to meet new people and also use facilities provided my GS. My team also do regular events outside of work e.g. team drinks, lunches etc. this is great to get to know them outside of work and also build a stronger relationship with them.

Yes

It is a great opportunity if you want to gain both a high quality qualification as well as experience within a large, well known business. It is also an alternative to full time university. I personally felt that full time university wasn’t for me but I still wanted to get a degree in computer science and I felt that this apprenticeship would be the best way to achieve it.

What really helped me when I started this apprenticeship was to look up over the summer holidays some basic knowledge on what would be covered within university like Java. I would recommend doing some light self-teaching on things like Java before you start so then you get a slight head start on the course as a lot of the programming you will learn on the course and within GS is in Java. It’s also good to understand how to write simple code and also terminology used within programming. I also recommend to research and find information about GS and some terminology used within the business as this really helped me when I started to understand the business a lot more.