Designer Review

I work in admin and design, designing things like communications and invites for clients. I also make videos for demos and design the front end for internal websites. I work in Hursley and there are other apprentices there. I work with many managers around my account (which must remain anon) but its good experience to work with the senior leadership team!

Yes. I was never able to use adobe products before joining IBM, and now I feel like a master of them! I was self-taught for these but given the time and resources to do so. I learned adobe indesign, adobe illustrator, and premier pro. I also learned how to use excel for my admin work, and slack for communication internally.

I enjoy it quite a lot. I am in my first year at Exeter university and have liked it, however because of COVID was unable to visit for exams, so unsure if I would have liked the exams in real life! The people leading the course can sometimes be unhelpful and not answer emails, but most of the time it's okay.

Not very organised, to be honest - I once went 4 months without an email back from my professor for an important exam (with lot's of chasing). We also didn't find out when exams would be until very late in the year, which made it impossible to plan holidays in the summer.

I received some support. Obviously they are not experts in the subject we are studying so don't know what we are going through as much, but they understand that it is a stressful situation to be studying and working at the same time. So, they sometimes are more lenient with things like deadlines for training, but not always.

Also, not that much. It is a very self - teaching programme. The lecturers don't always get back to you, but I can always count on my fellow apprentices for help and questions I have. Be prepared to search for information and answers to questions elsewhere. The general attitude, however, is that they want to help. I guess there are a lot of people on the scheme.

I learned how to develop front end, and used this in my role. I wouldn't have done that if I didn't learn this at uni. It a good skill for people interested in design because you need to make the website look nice. I definitely understand more about tech than I did before.

Yes, if you work in a base location that is quite full. The apprentices have group chats per location, and do fun things like going out, or doing sports, etc. Once I went to laser tag with them. It's less prominent in places like Manchester, where there arent many apprentices and you are probably on client site.

Yes

You get a free degree! That is such a great deal. The pay is okay... the only problem is that we are constantly promised pay rises and never given them, so don't get your hopes up! But yes many of my friends who went to uni are very jealous that I'm not in debt.

Don't worry too much about your grades and your results in the maths test. IBM is more interested in your demeanour and personality, for example, if you are a good leader, approachable, etc. I do wish I was told that you can't change your base location very easily. So pick one wisely!