Technical Apprentice Review

My role as Technical Apprentice is varied at this point in time, I’m currently taking part in placements within the business, as of now my day-to-day activities consist of creating various parts set out by my apprentice master, these activities take place within the maintenance workshop and can include use of mills, lathes, drills and other such equipment to create tools and parts to for fill the criteria of the Placement Plan, as well as maintenance i have placements within metrology, planning team, paintshop and engineering that have been confrimed.

Yes, in my last few months I have learn a plethora of new skills and found many opportunities to improve apron current skills that I have, namely new skills learnt were during my Quality Planning placement lead by my apprentice master, in this time I Learnt invaluable skills that related to the team as well as transferable skills that can be used throughout the business, during my current maintenance placement I’ve had a great opportunity to develop my lathe, milling and bench fitting skills that I had been taught though time spent with my father and time spent at college.

My Experience in the last 3 months being helped by members of another team to help turn my apprenticeship around have been immensely enjoyable and the training I have been given has left me no longer dreading coming to work but have made me excited to come in and see what new skills I will learn. The months prior to this could not have been more different, the lack of direction, little to no guidance and being pretty much left to flounder had left me with no motivation and feeling like i had no idea about the end goal of my apprenticeship, had it not been for some observant people who spotted these signs and myself reaching out to them for help I fear I may have been in the same situation now and does make me worry about future apprentices.

Very poorly, communication although improving left myself and fellow Technical Apprentices out of the loop during our first year of college, although I have access to laptop, phone etc. some of my fellow apprentices still lack the basic necessities such as access to their email which therefore leads to them missing important things. Having said this these apprentices have been kept up to date by those who do have access to these things and thanks to our friendship and team work we have been able to help keep any communication as free flowing as possible. The apprenticeship structure is not good, unknown college courses, no placement plans, generally no idea where we are headed in the apprenticeship has left a bad taste in our mouths. as far as I am concerned I have been able to create my own structure with the help of some concerned individuals which have gone out of their way to turn my apprenticeship experience around, no longer do I come in and not know what I am doing, with placement plan taking me all the way to April 2020 and then placement objectives within each placement means right from the small day to day tasks right up to knowing where I will be in 4,5,6 months down the line I can finally say that the structure of the apprenticeship has vastly improved.

Since the changes to my personal apprenticeship have taken place I can say that I have as much or as little support as I require, my apprentice master have been pivotal in making sure that no matter how big or small I have as much support as I need. Again prior to this I feel it was a grey area, if I really needed it I think the support was there but now I feel like it 100% is and in vast quantities can't thank the people who have helped turn this apprenticeship around enough!

I feel the training providers provide adequate support when required whether that be with practical tasks or with written tasks but I feel that there could be more support, there have been some occasions where we have no idea what qualifications we are aiming for as well as times where goal posts have been moved and it has left us needing to catch up or start something completely different.

My personal role I don't feel has great parity between what I study at college but to become a production engineer or quality based engineer I think it has its uses and would probably be the most appropriate college course short of the creation of a company specific qualification for us to study.

From the Corporate communications its appears there are currently many extra-curricular activities to get involved in like social events, sports and networking events however I am yet to take part in any of these and most of my work related extra-curricular activities just involve the apprentices which I share common interests with.

Yes

I feel the benefits, working atmosphere and the colleagues that work here are some of the nicest of any places I’ve worked, having all of these things in one work place is not easy to find and I feel that this is why I have so many friends who already work here and enjoy working here too.

Some of the tips and or advice that I would and have given to others applying to BMW Group have been to be persistent if its somewhere you really see yourself working, make sure that you don't go for some roles just to 'get your foot in the door' as they can mean you find yourself very limited to how far you can go.