Electrical Engineer Review

I spend 4 days a week on placement with a department within the business and 1 day a week in college working towards an HNC. Our placements last between 3 and 6 months. By doing a variety of placements, we will have had exposure to a wide range of things the business does and a good understanding of the products.

Since I am an office based employee, the majority of my work is computer based using software that I was already very familiar with; so from a skills point of view, I haven't learned much new. In terms of existing skills, the apprenticeship has helped me to develop formal communication skills, organisation and task management skills. On top of this, I have learned an incredible amount about the company and engineering in general which I think is giving me a good foundation of understanding the job/s I hope to have in the future with the company.

I enjoy a lot of the opportunities I have been given. I get to do STEM activities with school students as well as assist at careers events. I get to see a wide variety of company departments. The people I have worked with have generally been friendly and enjoyable to work with. I feel supported & valued by management which makes the company more enjoyable to work for. I would enjoy more opportunities to do hands on practical work with the product.

The organisation is good with room for improvement. From an educational point of view, we go to college, the college organises the academic development side of the apprenticeship and it works well. From a management side of things, since there are so many apprentices, there are dedicated staff employed to ensure that the apprentice schemes are running optimally. The place I feel has room for improvement is assignment of placements. We often don't know where we are going until just before we go which makes it difficult to prepare for it. The departments are often unused to having apprentices and so can be a bit of a lottery of how much support you get from your placement. Some placements work hard to look after you, others can be so busy that they find it difficult to commit much time to your development. If there was a bit more warning, and more training given to departments, these factors could be better.

Plenty. The management team have always been very supportive. There are processes in place to ensure apprentices treated fairly are checked up on to make sure they are getting the support they need. There are various points of contact that we are encouraged to contact should we need help. There are also wellbeing groups in place so that we can get in touch with mental health related issues.

The college has staff that work hard and genuinely try their hardest to delivery the best service that they can. If we need help, we can ask for it. They tend to be more passive in waiting for us to go to them rather than the other way round. The college is staffed by a very small team, if one of them is sick for the day we're at college, we don't get support for that subject for that day as there is no one to replace them. We can get in touch through email/phone on non-college days.

I don't feel like it's been very relevant at all. There hasn't been much cross over between work and college. This is likely due to work having niche and unique work packages. At college, we have started from basics covering very generic electrical engineering topics at a surface level. I don't see this as a negative thing as college is giving me a lot of input that I don't think I would get from work. As my HNC develops into a degree, I suspect the amount of crossover will increase, but again, with the unique product that the business makes, there may not be much crossover at all.

There is a large range of extra-curricular activities to get involved with. This ranges from STEM clubs at schools to organising charity events. I have done a lot of work with schools such as organising a road to engineering event where around 500 11 year old students came on-site to do a day of engineering challenges.

Yes

Because it offers good higher education and a very good salary. There is tonnes of support and job security. For our area, it is very difficult to get a good job, BAE Systems is an excellent way to develop skills and qualifications whilst at the same time earning money. With university being so expensive, BAES is a much better option.

Put lots of thought into the questions on the application form, and make sure you properly spell check your answers. Do lots of practice online aptitude test before attempting the BAE one to ensure you give yourself the best possible chance of scoring high. Do research about the company before applying as knowing a bit about the product can go a long way.