Apprentice Engineer Review

I am an apprentice engineer in my first year, I go to college 4 days a week and am at my GSK site for one day a week, at college I do a mixture of things from making set projects both practice and assessed in the mechanical workshop, to technical drawings and electronc princaples. these subjects are chosen to give me a multi skilled aproach for when I finally qualify. While on site at GSK I am tasked to follow someone and help where possible, doing this I get a good idea of what i'll be doing on my own and get a good feel for the site.

I have learnt a lot of new skills at college, the workshop is really eye opening and probably the best part of college, being able to keep what i've made after it's been assesed is a good insentive to get your finishes correct as the tool could last longer than you.

The other apprentices i work with are a great laugh and the people at GSK are always helpful and will try to keep you involved in what they are doing, the tutors at college can be helpful although there can be some problems but the staff at both GSK and college will help to the best of their ability.

Working at GSK i feel really valued, the amount of confidence and recources the put into you is amazing, the will help as much as they can and will make you feel like part of a big family. They always have a laugh and make you feel welcome.

the structure at GSK feels a lot more organised than at college, we seem to know whats going on at GSK while at college it seems a little bit confusing and misunderstood. The communication from college seems to be slow and tedious in comparison.

We get a lot of help if we ever need it at college, the tutors see us as humans and realise that we are going to be in real world situations and that we need to know what we are doing in order to succeed.

If we ever get stuck on anything GSK are on top of it almost straight away! with the help of a private maths tutor recommended by the college we were put back opn track with our maths and the assignments.

For an apprentice wage it's fantastic, its competative even with some full time jobs for people my age (18) and it keeps going up as long as your doing well and once you qualify it shoots up!

We have a lot of oppotunities to meet other apprentices from all over the country, we have a lot of training both in work like fire extinguisher training as well as opportunities to go to GSKs head office to do training and team building days.

Yes

The pay is great for our age bracket and there is th eoppotunity to go to university and get paid to go there!

Be confident and honest, they are more interested in the person than the piece of paper in front of them on the application. A background in engineering helps so if you like taking things apart then this is the job for you!