Technology Apprentice Review

This role requires me to work for a company as an apprentice. Usually, I'm programming a solution for a client. As I've had years of experience, the workload is usually a manageable amount - some days I only spend about an hour doing work, and others I spend a good 5 hours. I also get myself involved with social aspects, like visiting schools and reaching out to potential apprenticeships, however I dont really like this part of it as I find most people are unenthusiastic about it

I have not developed nor learnt any new skills; everything I know I've self-taught through my own personal projects. My new project lets me do certifications and they'll pay for it, which is quite cool. I havent learnt anything yet, but in a few months I might be certified in something like 'incident handling', so i'll have learnt a new skill, but this wouldnt be directly through working but through using my project's funds to get a certification.

I enjoy the maturity of the environment, and I enjoy working alongside my peers who are also on the programme. however, everyday feels the same and theres not much change, unless you switch projects, but finding the perfect project can be hard, especially when all the roles require a certain level. Therefore, i enjoy the social aspects but not the actual working aspect. I've also had really weird bosses that refuse to speak to me face to face and will only talk to me over the phone, so that wasnt very fun.

I would say it is an absolute mess - I found myself without a project for 9 months because there were no programming oppourtunities that took people on my level - for a company that has apprenticeships they should have a sufficient amount of roles for these appentices. And when I thought I found a role, they informed me they would no longer have the funding for me because my level is too high for them (i am at the lowest level in the hierachy). it is so disorganised!

From my current employer I get a lot of support - hes there for me both work wise and personal wise as he cares about my personal issues. for example, i was late to work one day because my grandad had to go to hospital early in the morning. i had also forgotton my phone so i couldn't tell my boss. my boss was completely understanding and even let me take some more time off that day to make sure my grandad was doing okay. if the same thing happened with my old boss, she would have messaged me a long paragraph of how irresponsible i am

not very much - i find that i am more knowledgeable than my professor most of the time, and i am quite shocked at how little he knows. however, once i forgot to press submit on an assignment for about a month and he let me hand it in late which was really nice. but i find it really weird how people actually pay to go to a university and get professors that dont know what they're doing.

it hasnt helped me at all - the programming language that we learn is taught incorrectly most of the time, and i dont use it in my job. the theory we learnt i knew anyway so that hasnt really helped at all. we also had some maths modules that were hard but i dont ever use that knowledge so i dont think the degree qualification that we are doing helps me in my role at all.

there are many parties, volunteering events and networking events, but i only join a couple a year as i find these are really awkward as you only know 1 or 2 people at each event, and everyone else is really old as these events are not usually apprentice-only. the parties are usually quite fun though because almost everyone goes to them, including all the apprentices, so its always nice to catch up with peers and get to know them even better,.

No

there are better apprenticeships out there, like pwc, that are more organised and give you more work to do, i'd say join accenture if you dont like doing much work but if you actually want to learn something, there is a massive amount of choice for other apprenticeships that are so much better - i only chose this one because i was too young for all the other apprenticeships. also i was meant to do a level 3 qualification 1st year but they cancelled that with a weeks worth of warning which was disappointing as i needed the level 3 for the degree i want to do after this apprenticeship

make sure you are chatty at the interview, but dont waffle off into a tangent; be a preofessional amount of chatty. also make sure to bring up past achievements in the sector you want to go into because they do take that in and it really does help in the intertview. applying to accenture was quite easy, so dont overthink it and get really nervous because it is not very hard to get into the programme