Technology Degree Apprenticeship Review

I’m doing the regular Computer Science degree at the University of Birmingham and during the summer of year one and two I will work for PwC in the technology sector for 10 weeks and then in year three I will work for the entire year as a year in industry.

Have learnt lots in lectures during the year so far but haven’t done any particular work for PwC yet so can only discuss from the university course so far. It has been really interesting though, learning about data structures and algorithms, different coding structures, functional programming, logic and computation and due to the course being partnered with PwC we are doing a business module and a finance module in order to boost our knowledge in the sector. All modules have been really interesting and I’ve learnt lots from the first year!

It’s incredibly fun due to the people that are also on the course. We naturally gelled on the first day and get on really, really well. The people at PwC are also really lovely and are easy to work with and we have been to the office to socialise and meet with some other full time employees.

Extremely well organised. Very focussed company and we have had many feedback sessions on how to improve for next year. As this is the first year of the technology degree apprenticeship they are even more receptive to feedback and improve the course for future years. The company is outstanding at making us feel like we are part of the company by asking us to office events and getting us to do real work in the organisation.

We receive enough support from PwC. We have tripartite meetings every term with our people manager at PwC and also our personal tutor at the university where we have a brief meeting discussing how we are doing on the course and how everything is going both personally and academically. They are definitely interested in helping us wherever we need and I feel like I can go to my people manager and buddy from PwC if I needed to ask a question.

The university gives us plenty of support too, both academic and social support. There are networks to go to if we need specialised support alongside having our personal tutor who we have for the entire duration of our degree and have a meeting with them every other week to update them on anything the university can be doing better to help us in the degree and process.

So far I am unable to say as I haven’t directly done any work for PwC yet so I cannot say how it will help for that however the work we have learnt at university gives us the foundations to work on any platform necessary in a business. So in that respect the content is incredibly important.

The university has over 300 societies to take part in and myself and lots of the PwC degree apprenticeship students take part in many of these which builds us as people and the skills that you just cannot learn from a lecture theatre like communication and team work. PwC also provides many community events and charity fundraisers alongside having friendly sports competitions between employee teams.

Yes

It’s an incredible work environment due to the people and on top of that you are given free tuition from an incredible university alongside amazing work experience in year one and two, then a whole year of more paid work with them in year three which saves you trying to find a year in industry provider. On top of that, if you get a 2:1 at the end of the degree, they will automatically give you a job!

Enjoy yourself and be yourself. PwC is an amazing company and you will want to work with them to be alongside the best minds in the field and also the loveliest people. PwC want people who are able to communicate effectively and efficiently and are also very good at what they do.