Electronic Technician Apprentice Review

Currently, I am in my first year of my apprenticeship and am at IPS training centre full time. Due to COVID-19 I have been working from home doing our BTEC assignments and the theoretical work for our NVQ. We spend 1 day a week attending our BTEC course, and, before we went into lockdown, we spent the other 4 days attending our NVQ practical lessons.

I have learned how better to present and layout my circuit boards and how better to solder components onto the board. I have also learned hot to perform other electronic activities such as wire wrapping and crimping.

I find it fascinating to learn all the things I have in what I have done so far. I am looking forward to learning and doing new things that I will be doing over the next few years.

I think it is really well-structured and each course is broken down into constituent units that help to understand and handle what we are learning. Many of the units interrelate so basic and fundamental concepts are reinforced across different units.

We receive plenty of support from our managers at BAE Systems and are always there to help us. There are many support lines we can turn to if we need help.

Each tutor is always willing to help us when we are struggling. There are also safeguarding officers and area leads that we can take our issues or concerns to.

2 of our NVQ course focus electronics, so these will be absolutely essential to our job as the BAE Rochester site focuses on electronics. We also do a CAD unit which we will eventually need. Our Bench unit does not handle electronics, but it provides us with the understanding and skills to function in other areas of engineering, enriching our understanding.

Due to COVID-19 we are not doing any extra-curricular activities, although I don't think there were going to be many activities. During our induction week we had an enrichment/team building day.

Yes

It provides proper training, cares about its employees, high focus on safety and good career opportunities.

The application process and the security clerence takes a long time, but it is worth it for the opportunity.