EDAS Apprentice Review

My day to day consists of working as an engineer within a team at BAE, work varies from placement to placement with each giving a unique insight into the various areas of the business. Some placements are fantastic allowing for both hands on engineering experience as well as developing you as a capable engineer; others however seem like the manager only took an apprentice on for administritive drivel and to do all their thankless tasks for them and has no interest in developing you or helping you learn. In some cases i've even been thrown under the bus for their mess ups because its easy to blame the incompetent apprentice. One day a week is university. cant knock it!

It's a fantastic opportunity to learn everything that goes into working at a large engineering company. The good and the bad. on one hand you get to experience and be a part of engineering in one of the most advanced sectors and learn from some of the most skilled in their field. on the other you have to learn to handle lack of support, inept leadership and the overall joyous side of the corporate experience.

The programme is fantastic if you are willing to make it so. don't trust the early careers leadership to do what is best for you. if you have an interest in a field within the company go directly to them and ask for a placement. there are plenty of people within the business who are willing to teach you and truly want to help apprentices grow into competent engineers. sadly it seems early careers is awful at finding them and instead favours sending them to manager who shout the loudest. this programme is what you make of it.

the apprenticeship is clearly structured with targets to hit throughout the years. however often due to lack of support from early careers this seems to be rapidly slipping. The programme leadership team has recently been reshuffled and the new early careers team doesn't appear to be able to keep up with the ever increasing number of apprentices they are trying to recruit. the outcome of this is apprentices being left in the dark with a lack of communication and support.

support is split into two sources; placement and early careers. depending on your placement manager they can be absolutely fantastic giving you opportunities to develop and experience a wide part of the field or providing a deep dive into an area that interests you. as previously mentioned some managers treat apprentices as free labour throwing them into the hamster wheel and expecting them to function at the level of other employees with little to no support. This isn't a fault of the mangers most of the time as little guidance on what the apprenticeship is is provided to them from early careers. support from early careers is sorely lacking with requests for information frequently been brushed aside or ignored completely.

Blackpool and the Fylde college is one perk of this apprenticeship! Most of the lecturers are fantastic with a very engaged support team available all the time. response times are prompt and all involved are willing to make time to help you out if required. the programme itself is more industry focused than a normal degree and blends well with experience at work.

As previously mentioned the degree has a slight industry spin to it. it helps with providing the base knowledge you can them take into your role and apply to your work. overall it provides a good foundation in which work experience in your day to day role builds off of.

Extra curricular activities are available including helping with job interviews, lots of learning opportunities such as seminars or web talks. the business offers lots of technical seminars and opportunities. as well as networking events for junior members to meet senior leadership. teams themselves also offer sports events in evenings and there are plenty of five a side teams about!

Yes

Despite all the flaws with early careers if you make this apprenticeship your own and treat it as simple an "in" to the company you can network and find your own opportunities in the business. Do not rely on the early careers team to help you out or do what's best for you. there are plenty of great opportunities within the business, just don't expect any help from early careers to find and foster them. make a good impression with the teams you want to work with, after your 5 years are up you'll never have to deal with Early careers again.

Give it a shot. be yourself and hold yourself to a good standard. if you are genuinely interested in engineering people will see it and help you grow that interest into an exciting career. however be wary of those who are willing to throw you under the bus to cover their own mistakes and others who simply don't care about your progress. there's certainly some diamonds in all the dung, and they are well worth finding!