Degree Apprentice Review

6 months placements in different attachments. I am meant to complete work package and gather experience but most of the time the job role is compensating for where there is gaps in existing teams. Support is team dependent but generally good. The type of work is very varied from one placement to the next and generally fairly interesting. Most of the placements for the degree programme are office heavy but there is occasional opportunities for practical work.

Definitely learnt many new skills, both through the degree at university and the placements. Interestingly the academic skills come in very handy in the workplace as they are pre-requisites for much of the work I do there, but the placements consolidated and contextualise the academia fairly well. Incredibly useful are non-nominal skills learnt in the office such as etiquette and office politics. I should note that there is an established structure for internal development and mentoring which is fantastic.

The work is very rewarding and the networking is brilliant. However it is a lot of work, very demanding hours, little time to study and this is further compounded by the company culture to work overtime every time, this isn't sustainable from my position. The university could also to a better job at accommodating for apprentices since in Y2 we had an 11hour university day of back to back lectures. other than that opportunities are plenty and partly make up for the workload.

The program lead, support and infrastructure is in Derby, meaning the Bristol lot have minimal organisation and the structure that is copy/pasted from Derby just does not apply in some cases ( much higher rent but same pay). Other than that there is many management layers, sometimes too many to be clear. My group is the first on our program in Bristol and the early years really showed that it was yet to be established.

Support is difficult to quantify as it takes so many aspects in our program. The apprenticeship provider has subcontracted the NVQ to a college and we deal with apprenticeship as well as placement management on the business side. This means for any issue or support request we first need to understand who of the 4 to go to and even then it has happened on many occasions that issues get juggle between providers, contractors and company like hot potatoes.

There is plenty of support directly towards the qualifications, in this case a BEng degree and the Lv 4 NVQ. There is also outside support such as career coaches. The main suffering point is the number of changes our young program has undertaken. By this I mean changes in management structure but also individuals on every front so far. It is obvious the programme is still young and we are the first year but over the 3 years so far there has been a clear improvement on that front.

The academia marries rather well with the placement work, albeit some things I can't help but feel are never touched on. As an example we have an Aero and Mech pathway but sometimes it feels like we are taking modules and undergoing training that the other pathway would be a lot more suited to, and vice versa. Other than that the position has given me a good understanding of the industry and its requirements.

With covid at the moment everything is reduced to a minimum but before this I took most opportunities I could ranging from sport with the employer or university to STEM events and work socials. There is a good diversity of opportunity to step up in such events and they have already offered contacts that have helped me further my career. There is a good balance of give and take opportunities and priority is allocated fairly.

Yes

This is tough since most of my friends are now apprentices who are already in this role and well suited for it. However I cannot stress enough that this is a young programme with many kinks that need ironing. It demands a lot of it's apprentices and implicitly requires sacrifices in other aspects of life. So yes, I would recommend the program to my friends now, but if it was 5 years ago and I knew what I was getting in for, I don't think I could candidly say it's for everyone.

I would say to consider how much work you are willing to put in and how much free time you are willing to sacrifice. It's demanding but rewarding. It's unorganised at times but opportunities are endless. How well you tessellate with the company culture is very important to consider as many work loyally for long hours. Finally location is important to pick right and make sure pay/development opportunities match those offered by other local companies since in one site it may be competitive where on another you live in relative poverty.