Apprentice Review

On a day to day basis my role generally consists of working on the assembley line at Rolls Royce. I currently work on stations 052-030 and 052-020, on 052-030 I fit: wheel arch liners, wheels and undertrays. On 052-020 I fill the car with: petrol, brake fluid, ARS and aircon. I also fit boot carpets. However, from 10th June I will be changing to a different department and working in Computer Aided Quality.

At Rolls-Royce I have not really gained any new skills. However, I have developed many existing skills. I have developed my problem solving, my dexterity skills, my communcation skills and also my ability to work within one team. Because I have just over 2 years of my apprenticeship left, I hope I can develop many new skills.

Unfortunately, at the moment I am not enjoying my apprenticeship programme as much as I would like. This is mainly because I have been on the same 2 areas of the assembley line for the entirety of my apprencticeship, because I now know these areas very well, I find it somewhat boring. As I am changing department soon, I hope that I will start to enjoy my apprenticeship much more.

The programme is not as well structured as I would've hoped. This is because I find that there is a lack of direction in where I could possibly end up. Also, at college, we have had to "redo" the first year due to unforseen changes in the programme compared to other years which is rather annoying.

From my employer I receive a good amount of support. I feel confident that I can go to my employer and ask for help and guidance where necessary and come away satisfied with the support I have been given from them. The advice from employer is also helpful, it allows me to progress easily.

The college support provided is not that good. This is because we have gone through many student tutors since the start of the apprenticeship, so sometimes I do not know who I should go to for help towards my qualifications. Also, because we are on a different standard to other apprentices within the company it is sometimes confusing on what we need to do.

I do not feel that the qualification we carry out at college is very necessary to my role at work. This is because, at college we carry out certain technical procedures that we have not done at work at all. For example: milling, lathe work, welding and other bench fitting activities. However, the theory side of the course is more relevant to work.

I do not know of any extra curricular activities that I can get involved with at work. This is mainly because, when working on the line I do not have access to a computer, so I cannot check my emails to read the corporate comms, these detail things going on around work. We are read corporate comms in the morning on the line, however this is very breifly and only covers matters that concern us.

No

I would not recommend BMW to a friend because I feel that sometimes I am not listened to when I raise my concerns about the lack of structure to the apprenticeship. I feel like I have not been able to progress as much as I would have liked to since 2017.

I would say to others that you should be confident and sure in your answers to the interview, as nothing you say is wrong. I would also say that you need some level of technical/"hands on" ability to carry out the work, and if you are not technically minded this is not really the job for you.