Mechanical engineer Review

Mechanical engineering apprentice, this involves shadowing a mentor who is a qualified engineer and learning skills as I go. As I get more and more experienced I can start to lead the jobs and grow as an engineer. It also involves doing a lot of paperwork to ensure that I am suitably qualified.

Yes, I have developed a lot of communication all skills as part of my apprenticeship. Due to always working with someone I have managed to become a lot more vocal and I now work a lot better as part of a team than in any previous employment. Thanks to my apprenticeship.

I enjoy the programme when I am actually at work. However, my experience at reading college was appalling, awful teachers, awful college. Genuinely used to dread doing college once a week, it was so awfully managed and organised, some days we would turn up with no teacher all day and be expected to learn.

As said before, the programme that is being ran by awe staff is very well organised. However reading college was embarrassingly organised. The college experience was enough to make me not recommend the course to others. Until the college changes, it will really hold back the engineering sector at awe.

I receive a tremendous amount of support from my employer, especially my line manager. My line manager is a crucial part of my job due to having so much contact and he genuinely is brilliant, always has time for me and other apprentices and always offers solutions that are fair.

We receive a good level of support from our employer. They organised uni graduates to help us the topics that we are struggling with. This really helped us to pass our exams, and without this support from my employer I would have struggled to pass my exams. Awe really helped.

None at all. Reading college taught me zero about my job, they were under qualified teachers teaching subjects that they aren’t familiar with. I had a maths teacher teaching me mechanical principles. And English teacher taught me computer aided design, of which she was clearly googling everything before telling us

Yes, at specific placements there is plenty of opportunity to get involved in extra curricular activities. For example, one placement organises football events on a bi-weekly basis that everyone who I interested can get involved with. Another placement goes out most weekends and it has really helped with my work life.

Yes

I would suggest AWE as the job itself is very interesting and you can earn good money. The apprenticeship is a good opportunity for all ages to learn a trade and get their qualifications within 3 years. There is a great social element at awe too, which helps with outside life

I would give others the advice of being open minded and to adjust to the situation. Some people end up leaving fairly early on because they don’t adjust to AWE, the company has its own way of doing things and once you fit right in, work is very good