Apprentice heavy vehicle technician Review

My current role in the company is an apprentice I am on a rotation on a section working with electrical components my days currently involves, inspecting, testing and repairing (if required) these components, I do this under the guidance of an apprentice mentor on the section who shows me what to do and checks my work

I have learnt new skills such as , soldering ( which I was taught on my current section), different metal filling techniques (learnt when doing filing exercises in our training wing), how to use equipment such as pillar drills and band saws (which was also taught in the training wing). I developed my current skills and understanding of hand tooling.

I really enjoy the apprenticeship program as it allows me to learn whist on the job, giving me a much greater over all understanding of the business and giving me a grater amount of transferable skills and knowledge. I also enjoy the rotation aspect of my apprenticeship as it allows me to move around the business and build a better understanding of it.

My apprenticeship program is pretty well structured we have 3 lots of 3 week long collage blocks throughout the year as well as this we have 8 week rotations, which are subject to extension depending on the availability of different sections. This structure allows a more comfortable transition between sections and a better understanding of what’s happening when.

I Receive a good amount of support from my employer in multiple different ares such as, technical support on the computer systems from IS (our internet/ computer support team) I receive technical support from my apprentice mentor as well as my line manager and I also receive good support from my manager on other issues such as progress

I receive good support in the form of collage blocks these are 3. Weeks long and i have 3 in my first year. Those collage blocks involving practical and theory that helps in the workplace such as learning about SOPs and different types of tools and there uses in the workshop

I think that the collage training provided by my training provider gives me a lot of extra knowledge and skills that I have been able to transfer into my day to day work, theses skills include health and safety information such as hazard identification and the uses of different fire extinguishers and technical information such as how to safely operate lifting equipment.

Currently due to the COVID 19 pandemic these activities have been put on hold which is completely understandable, hopefully with the lockdown coming to an end in the summer there will be a chance for more activities. As I started working during the pandemic I am unsure what activities there were before

Yes

Because it is a good professional working environment where you will gain a lot of different experiences in different areas of the business as well as this the collage support is good an there training is also good it helps in the workplace as well as in the wider career aspects

If you can get some work experience before hand and see what you think of it , my work experience before joining the apprenticeship program gave me a lot of useful insight into what the apprenticeship was all about, what I can expect to do and what the businesses is like as a whole