Engineering Degree Apprentice Review

As a engineering degree apprentice I am currently going around different placements around the factory, at the moment I am in Single Aisle Manufacturing Engineering Planning, in this placement my current day to day tasks consist of going onto SAP, which is Airbus' ERP provider, and answering Engineers Query Notes (EQNs), this involves reading the EQN and doing what it wants on it, this usually involves changing operations and up issuing standard operating instructions.

On the course I have learnt many new skills such as in the first year we spent 6 months at Coleg Cambria completing our performing engineering operations (PEO) qualification which taught us lots of new hand skills such as free hand drilling, bolting, riveting, hand filing, understanding airbus drawings, etc. Then in the Uni lectures we have also learnt how to use CAD and CAM software to model and create CNC procedures for parts.

The programme itself is quite enjoyable as there are always new tasks to do so you are always challenged, but this is brought down by the fact that some people on the course have no interest in the industry or business, and have no interest to act or talk with common decency to others, they just want the money and free degree. But that can't be helped.

The programme could be organised better as information can be quite slow to reach the apprentices, also the Exam/assignment timetable for the uni side of the course is in a state of utter shambles with assignments and exams being pulled forward and pushed back by up to a month. Also the placement tracker, we use to know where our next placement is, keeps changing as departments no longer can take apprentices, but early careers are not told so, we have had cases where apprentices have been prepared to move to a new placement and when arriving there being told to leave for another placement.

From our early career managers we receive a decent amount of support as they can be slow to reply to emails, but this is due to the amount of apprentices they have to deal with, but in team reviews they are very helpful with any queries we might have. On placements our line managers are usually very helpful and approachable and are willing to help us with any issues we might have.

This varies greatly, as the PEO and NVQ level 4 trainers provide so much help to us so that we can pass and meet our deadlines, on the other hand the lecturers on the uni side can be very varied, some are exceptional and provide us with all the help we need to ensure we do our best, others rarely give us assistance and expect us to be masters of industry. And others will just cause confrontation saying "if you have to ask the question, you haven't bothered to research it yourself" which has caused huge tensions between the apprentices and lecturers.

Some of the things we learn in lectures is applicable, for example in our structures lectures we learn about the different stresses and how to calculate them, as well as similar topics like Mohr's circle, this can of information can be directly applied to our placements in design when we work with stress and fatigue & damage tolerance teams.

There are many extra-curricular activities available hosted by the Group Gen-A, This is run by Apprentices and they host events such as visits to airports, guest speakers, sports events, and other activities which are done out of work. There are also several sports times run by the company such as the Airbus football club.

Yes

Aside from the very competitive pay and the free degree, Airbus is a great company to work for, most of the people in the factory are very nice and very friendly, they are also all willing to help, as most of the people in Airbus are past apprentices so they all know what you are going through.

When applying for Airbus, make sure your phone is on and not on silent all the time, as if you miss a call from recruitment, you'll have a nightmare trying to get back in touch with them, another piece of advice is learn about the Airbus Group, know what its comprised of, learn what products are made and make sure you know the current state of the business. Also don't lie on your CV you'll get found out and rejected so fast.