Digital Degree Apprentice Review

This year is my placement year where I've had the opportunity to work with the Architecture team in Digital. As an apprentice my days have mostly been spent reading and understanding the architecture at Vodafone, and helping with small jobs for the senior architects I'm working with.

Yes, in the architect role I've spent time developing my expertise in REST, HATEOUS, swagger (Open API specifications), Azure Devops, UML, C4 modelling diagrams as well as spending some time on the basics of AWS in the hopes of getting certified by the end of the year. I've also been able to work on my web development skills.

The program has many benefits and opportunities. I enjoy it a lot, the salary enables me to do more of what I enjoy, and I always wanted to do a computer science degree, and the program enables me to do that. The people at Vodafone are all friendly, so it's a great experience to get to work with them all.

Some parts are better than others. At a high level it is well organised, 1 year at Uni, summer placement, 2nd year at Uni, year placement, 3rd year at Uni, 2 years in a role at Vodafone. The course content delivered by the University is well organised, as it is the same as the other computer scientists, so is in a good place, and constantly being improved. My time at Vodafone is less well organised, and especially in this year placement, I have had to find my own goals and work to fill my day. I have had many opportunities to challenge myself in the role, but I have had to find those opportunities myself. Then there is the apprenticeship itself, which has not been well organised. This is down to my year being the first year, so there were plenty of unknowns and processes are still being defined even now. Just recently they changed a major competency system to make it easier for us to record our work, but I'm halfway through my placement year and now need to copy over everything I have done on the previous system.

All the support I could need. I have contacts in the business who are quick to respond to any queries I have, and constantly reach out with opportunities for us

The same support that is provided to any other student at the University. Lecturers have office hours, or are available by email. There is a wellbeing team and many contacts in the University who can help with anything

Having both of them together is a big help in refining what areas I should focus on. I like all areas of computer science, and the University of Birmingham provides that breadth of information. Through Vodafone I have found that focusing on web development will be useful, and a lot of fun, so that is what I plan to do for my final year project.

Yes, I can get involved in societies at the University of Birmingham, Vodafone have some groups for socials, and time in work for teams to socialise. There are many professional networking events, and many people you can contacts,

Yes

They are friendly, generous, supportive, and within an industry I want to work in.

Just go for it. For the apprenticeship they know where you are in life and what knowledge you have, so they want to know about you, and whether you'd be a good fit for the culture in Vodafone.