engineer apprentice Review

I am currently in the first year of my apprenticeship, during this first year I have been at college full time except from the school terms what we spend onsite. When we are at college we are mostly doing coursework and some practical activities, these are things like electronics, bench fitting and electrical fitting.

Whilst I have been at south Essex college, I have learnt lots of new skills, especially as I am straight out of secondary school and I've never been in an environment like this. Things I have learnt are mostly practical, but this also helps with the theory side of things as well.

I am currently enjoying this programme, some parts of the programme are more enjoyable than others but you need to do them to complete the course and gai the qualifications. When there was a lockdown the online learning was a bit difficult but hopefully the other years will not have the same issue.

The college could be organised better but its not entirely their fault, with the lockdowns etc, the organisation hasn't been great. The college is also very short staffed, this makes it difficult for us because some of our teachers our not suitable for the topics they are teaching us. Whereas within the actual company the organisation is much better.

Because we are at college full time we don't get to see our manager very often, but he will often message us to make sure everything is going alright and if there are ever any issues, we can simply call them and they will ensure that everything is sorted out.

The training provider isn't very good, some of the work we are doing doesn't seem relevant at all, I am not sure if we would still be doing it if we were at a different training provider. The teachers we get here are sometimes not relevant for the topic we are doing as the college are very short staffed.

Some of the topics we are doing within the college are defiantly relevant these are things like electronic lab (soldering), bench fitting (creating things using different materials), electrical( wiring up sockets etc) and maintenance( taking motors apart and putting them back together). There are also some topics like business studies which isn't very relevant at all.

unfortunately the college nor the company offer any extra-curricular activities. As we are first year apprentices we have a residential trip that we go to, to help improve our teamwork skills etc. This trip will be near the lake district and we will meet with the other Britvic sites whilst up there, then we will stay there for around 5 days and do various activities.

Yes

The company has lots of different benefits, this includes a pension, a staff shop and extremely good pay. The people at the company are nice and are always happy to help. if you ever have any issues your manager will try to get things sorted as soon as possible, this ensures that you are always happy to be at work.

When applying for Britvic, you should try to put as much detail into the application so it stands out to other people. The application process for Britvic includes filling out some questions including your CV and cover letter. the next stage will be answering some initial assessments on maths/English/engineering. then if you pass this you will have to create a brief presentation on yourself which lasts 5-10 minutes. Then due to covid, we had to attend a interview via Microsoft teams. then finally I was invited onsite for a final interview and a tour of the factory.