Aircraft Maintenance Egineer Review

For the first 2 years I had to pass many exams relating to an EASA B license. Studying day in day out and revising on evenings.

Of course I have learned things that I have read, but the main thing I took from this course is how to remember one sentence from a book of 4000 pages and regurgitate when in exam conditions. I understand that this is the only way to pass a course of this standard, but this was no way to study and pass exams (proven by scientific studies)

I can confidently say that the 2 years spent at the AMA have been the worst 2 years of my entire life, by a long margin. Personally I had to receive counselling as the support from work was minimal, and my mental health has deteriorated substantially over these 2 years, all thanks to the academy. I feel sorry for future apprentices that have to experience half of the things we did as a group.

Most things got organised on the day they were supposed to happen, meaning no staff or resources were available, therefore meaning us students had to entertain ourselves (for more than a whole week at one point) to pass the time. There were multiple times throughout the course we had to make our own plan up as apprentices because the management team were not able to create one for us. Having moved into my 3rd year and being placed at RAF Valley, I can say that the organisation has got worse if anything, we have been placed on nights with no training and are expected to complete an NVQ Level 4 (which we cannot do without evidence, evidence we get from the training).

The instructors were perfect, most went out their way to help us through the course and try their best to make it somewhat enjoyable, even though most of them didn't want to be there themselves. However, the support from management was atrocious. Approaching a welfare officer about mental health problems to be told to "quit" is not acceptable when the company support mental health charities and events. As a group of 10 apprentices we had to beg for recognition of our outstanding exam result, only to be given an effortless "well done".

Training was provided by a mixture of BAE staff and Resource Group, please see answer to question 5

The qualification has proven pointless upon arriving at our new placement, we were told that we were the "future" when in reality we have just joined the back of a very long queue in to aircraft maintenance. There is no "licensing structure" that was promoted to us, we would have been much more beneficial to have done a mechanics course.

Other than STEM program I am unaware of any others, one of my group took it upon themselves to create a 5-a-side football tournament.

No

The only good thing was the qualification (which was NOT the qualification that I applied for) but everything else throughout the 2 years did not make the course worth doing. If I could go back and withdraw my application I would.

If you really want to join BAE Systems I would ensure you are strong minded, have plenty of patience and be prepared to be let down. But the best advice would be to find an apprenticeship elsewhere.