Engineering Apprentice Review

Most days of the week (Tuesday to Friday) are spent at Chichester college. The Monday is spend at the plant. At the plant, I work around the production line helping where I can to build the cars. At college, we have learned several topics to do with engineering and have assignments that we need to complete, along with job write ups that we have experienced at the plant.

I have learned some new skills at college including welding and aspects of bench fitting that otherwise I would not have learned. At work, I have learned about how companies such a RR or BMW run and some other aspects, including small insights into different areas of the production line.

I feel 50/50 about the apprenticeship. Some of the work at the plant enjoyable and I have genuinely enjoyed learning how a company like this works. In the beginning, I learned a lot of new skills at college to do with engineering and things I enjoy, like welding. Towards the end of the year my experiences at college have died down as I no longer have much to do, and at the plant the work is becoming a bit repetitive.

The organisation at college is relatively okay and in the beginning we all had practical work to complete. At the end of the year most of us have had nothing to do and just sit around doing work at computers. At work, there has been little organisation. No one is really sure what to do with us, no one is really sure what we're allowed to do, or even what they want us to do. There is no real objective of us working here. We're not getting into job roles that we were originally advertised at the end of our apprenticeship.

There is little support at work. We were only assigned managers at around the halfway point and beforehand the person managing us rarely replied to messages. It may not have been their job to do so but as apprentices we had no one else to turn to. Our current managers have only just been introduced to us but seem uninterested. We were meant to have 1 to 1 sessions with managers to discuss our progress and 9 months in and I haven't spoken to anyone.

The support received from my training provider is sufficient. The lecturers are knowledgable on our subjects and our liason student tutor seems helpful but we do not see much of her. Whenever I have struggled I have usually just gone straight to our course leader as he is happy to help with anything.

My qualification has taught me lots of skills to do with engineering, such as welding, bench fitting and car mechanics. Although all of these have given me a good foundation knowledge with which I can further my career, my current role at the plant and the role I'm set to have once I've finished my apprenticeship will not benefit from these skills.

There are opportunities that I have heard of such as connect four, but I have not been offered the chance to attend any of these. I understand however that this is probably because I'm not at the plant much and have not been working here for all that long.

Yes

The opportunity to learn about the industry and what the company is like to work for will be invaluable to me in the future. To anyone that is young and unsure what to do with their career, working at BMW / RR will be a great start considering it looks so good when looking to move on to other jobs.

Apply yourself as best you can throughout your time at your apprenticeship. Do not rely on what's been said as nothing seems to be set in stone. Get the experience under your belt so that you can move on to a good career path. Take any opportunity you get to network.