Network engineer apprentice Review

My role as an apprentice was to travel round the different teams in the company & learn a bit of what each team does, until I found somewhere to fit in, & continue working to improve my skills in that area. I landed in the network & security team, & remained there for the rest of my apprenticeship.

Before I joined the network & security team, I completed my CompTIA A+, Network +, & Security+ courses, & took the exams for my certifications. Once I joined the network & security team, I mainly learnt about using CISCO & Juniper devices for networking, & was pushed to take my CCNA certification exams, & plan to take my CCNP in the future. The range of skills available to learn are incredibly extensive.

My apprenticeship programme required me to spend 20% of my employment in education, which I do from home 1 day a week. This combined with the support of my co workers in either education, or my job make working at SSE enterprise telecoms very enjoyable, & keeps me looking forward to coming in.

The programme I was put on seems very well structured, & we had a plan for which courses & exams I'd do, & when in the programme I'd do them. This helped everyone involved in my apprenticeship get a feel for the timeline of the programme. Despite how planned everything is, there is also a lot of flexibility in the time given to complete everything.

I personally haven't needed much support, but any questions or worries I bring to my employers & co workers are answered seriously, & they go out of their way to make sure I understand their explanations. This combined with them asking me if I need any help with anything lets me know they're there if I need any help.

I failed the first set of exams I attempted, & when I told my tutor, they did their best to get me the help I needed. Within a day I was given access to mock exams, & course materials to help me revise & learn all the knowledge I needed to pass the exams.

I feel there has been a lot of information that I won't need in my current role, such as the CompTIA+, however, If I chose to move somewhere else, the information I learned in the other courses & exams could prove beneficial to the company & I. On the other hand, there are courses like the CCNA course that are incredibly beneficial to my current role in the Network & Security team.

We have a weekly newsletter go out with updates to the company, & activities happening outside of work, however I don't take part in any of them. Most of them don't interest me, but I also car share, so I can't spare the time while people wait to get home.

Yes

The amount of support & skills I have learnt on this apprenticeship are beyond what I thought I would get going into it, & others could, & should benefit from this as well. If my friends were looking for jobs, I would highly recommend applying for any apprenticeship going at SSEE teleoms, & working here.

My advice to others applying to the company would be to not worry. Everyone here is incredibly laid back & relaxed. If you feel you don't fit in with where you're currently working, you can always trial working in a different team, & seeing how it goes there, & possibly transition to that team instead.