Apprentice Laboratory Technician Review

Assisting with the setting up and running of undergraduate and postgraduate classes, across the School of Science and Technology.

I did learn plenty of skills, with a focus in biological skills, but this was often hampered by there not being a proper structured training plan in place. This meant certain skills were not addressed that were needed for the course, and often i had to seek out the training myself in order to gain the skills. This was not the fault of the technicians in the labs, but was the fault of the manager.

I enjoyed aspects of the course, and there was the potential to be more enjoyable if it had been properly planned. My course consisted of moving to all of the areas of science and working in 8 week rotations with no say on where i went or how long for. This meant that i worked in areas where i had little interest, or where there was a lack of work. Caused a lot of stress.

It was not planned or structured at all. The areas where we worked were not always applicable to the college course, and we were often dumped in departments with very little notice to the technicians. They therefore did not know what to train us in, and caused a lot of stress and therefore hostility towards the apprenticeship as a whole.

The support from my direct line manager was practically non existent, the only support i got was from the technicians, but as they were not directly involved in the apprenticeship programme they often couldn't do much to help.

None at all, as mentioned above.

My training was through Central college which was an extremely dated building with a shocking lack of lab equipment to say it was the site of science training. For probably the first 18 months of the course, i was repeating content that i had covered during GCSE's/ALevels. The turnover rate of the staff was so high too that there was massive inconsistencies with the level of training.

There is a gym with classes, science conferences, technician social gatherings etc.

No

For all the reasons mentioned above. The apprenticeship programme has the potential to be something amazing, but not without drastic changes that have not yet happened.

Think it through and look at proper reviews first.