DDAT Degree Apprentice Review

My role changes every 6-9 months and because of this I have to spend a lot of time learning different roles. At the moment I am in the cyber security team, this role involves completing tasks from the teams backlog. Some examples are finding old routers that are not safe and removing/replacing them and conducting reviews on admin accounts and databases in the business.

I have both learnt new skills and developed many of my existing skills. Building my network is the biggest new skill I have learnt and this apprenticeship has helped me massively. One skill I have developed are the organisation and planning of myself and my work to make it easier for those who work with me.

I enjoy This programme a lot as it has given me the opportunity to try many different career paths to help me understand what I enjoy. The only downside to moving around so much is that I don't have a set team throughout my team and I am having to continuously learn new roles so I cannot focus on improving in one specific area.

For the most part it is organised. On the work side I always know where my current placement is, where my next placement is and when i will be moving over. We have had a few troubles on the uni side regarding how many days we were going into university. Being unorganised is a rarity.

I have 3 direct contact for my support and countless others. When I started Anglian Water gave me a Line Manager and leadership team mentor who are both people i can reach out to for support. I have a placement manager for the current placement I am on who is the 3rd person I can reach out to.

Aston University allow us to contact out lecturers and set up meetings with them in the week if needed and we have contacts for people elsewhere in the university if we need help or have concerns.

As my role changes a lot it does vary but if I were to look from an overall perspective there is a lot of overlap. Very placement specific.

Anglian Water run a few different activities like rounders for the DDAT teams. The biggest for me would be the apprentice social activities. Over my course of being here Anglian Water have started apprentice catch ups and digital forums for apprentices in AW to meet each other and learn new things.

Yes

The environment is great and I feel like I can go to anyone about anything and they will try their best to help me.

Be yourself and be open/truthful about what you know and what you want to know.