Advanced Technical Apprentice Review

My role involves supporting the department I am currently stationed with during my 2/3 month tenure there. I may be involved in projects (both at an individual and team level), core work that occurs daily, training to better understand my the role of the department, or helping out in any way I can.

I have developed my interpersonal skills through cooperation on projects and tasks both with people within and without the department. My skills with tools have improved as I work through my manual rotations and apprentice projects. Additionally, my organizational skills are improving as I create project plans, organize meetings, co-ordinate people within my projects, and establish realistic goals.

I enjoy my programme a lot. The ability to rotate between the 14 different departments of the company, experiencing the type of work and learning new things about the business and general engineering is a real privilege that few other apprenticeships can really boast about. The people I have met across my rotations have been interesting, welcoming, incredibly friendly and helpful to a fault.

The programme is mostly well organized. The rotation tracker (from which we find out our next area of tenure) is created well in advance to your arrival onto site. This has been subject to change, with apprentices and managers sometime unaware of a change to the order or the arrival of an apprentice respectively.

My employer does offer a range of support but this mainly comes through the management,. senior staff and team members. There is no lack of support from these groups in particular. The management do often organize meetings to assist with work, 1-1s to discuss progress, assistance in seeking out other avenues of help etc.

Our training provider does come on to site out of college time (outside of our day-release) to monitor our progress and to offer guidance. Our coursework is done in smaller class sizes which means help is easier to access and better tailored to us individually. The level of support was a little poor coming out of Covid but its my understanding that it is now much better.

The biggest influence on my role my learning from my training provider has had on the performance of my role is the Health and Safety coursework we did early on. Outside of that (besides a handful of information gathered from other coursework) the qualification itself hasn't had a too significant of an impact on the performance of my role; for better or for worse.

There are EEEC opportunities which involved getting involved with the community through volunteering work like at job fairs, gardening, food banks etc. Cummins Cafe events are used for quarterly discussions and networking with others outside of your region. Many of the departments are involved in friendly football matches. These department teams are mainly just through friendships within each department aren't formal things.

Yes

Cummins is a respected company within Darlington (and globally) with a history here spanning over 50 years with no sign of that coming to an abrupt halt. The company continues to grow and expand into new areas of the market, recording significant profits year-after-year. The apprenticeship stands head and shoulders above its peers both in terms of opportunity and pay. I would recommend Cummins for its security, opportunity and pay; at least at an apprentice level.

My tips and advice would always be to maintain an eagerness to learn, the ability to listen and the effort to engage. Ensure that you participate as often as possible, making sure to watch and learn. No one expects the apprentice to know everything or do everything or pick up a newly learnt skill or piece of information straight away. If you struggle with something, being seen to trying to learn or improve really goes a long way.