Maintenance Technician Review

As an apprentice in the second year, we are on placements around the plant. This includes mainly shadowing qualified maintenance engineers, visually following the jobs they complete and then joining in and completing them yourself once you are more confident and competent, giving great options for learning, as the engineers are all very knowledgeable so you can ask them theory or mechanical based questions too.

Yes, in the first year of the apprenticeship you work in the workshop on plant - where you are taught a number of fundamental engineering skills and get access to high quality equipment to practice the skills. These skills include hand fitting, turning, milling, welding, electrical and electronic principles, PLC programming and fluid power.

The course has been very interesting and useful. It provides you with a good basis for performing your job correctly. This was particularly the case in the first year of the programme; unfortunately now, where we have fallen behind due to a number of circumstances, it has started to become something where we just have to research topics ourselves just for assignments rather than properly learning and putting our learning to action. Outside of the course, I think the structure of shadowing different engineers in different areas is very useful and most often very enjoyable.

As previously mentioned, due to structure problems in the previous months and year, I feel the structure could definitely have been better and made more enjoyable, although after some meetings and question sessions, BMW and BMET are both seemingly proactive in looking to make changes to ensure everything is better in the future.

Our training managers are very approachable and will do their best to sort any problems for/with us which makes me feel more comfortable whenever I think I am in need of any support. There are also options in place if there is some reason you cannot complete the course content, such as catch-back sessions or tutors that are very approachable for any questions.

We have very approachable tutors that you may ask for any assistance if you get stuck at any point whilst working towards the qualifications. At some point, extra sessions for advancing certain skills may also be available to us which would potentially provide great consolidation for the theory side of the course.

I think that the training, particularly in the first year has been paramount in developing skills for the role and during the placements as it has helped me think about problems in different ways that allow me to find the source of problems and more confidently take steps to resolve the issues.

There are some extra curricular activities such as the newsletter team. I think that the extra curricular activities should be better advertised, possibly during some of our in-dialogue meetings with our training managers.

Yes

I think the course provides a great learning opportunity, and the placements give you better experience of a working environment and get you involved and more knowledgeable in your job role.

Revise any skills, hobbies, or projects that you have completed, as this will give you plenty to talk about in your interview.