Machinist Review

I'm currently being trained up as a machinist and our main day to day work can vary from repairing trim steels, to modifying them or on new jobs creating brand new steels from scratch that would reside on a die. In addition we occasional make one off parts if a die is under performing.

Throughout my course i have learnt toolmaking with gives an understanding of how die tooling works, which features are important to the function and how to repair them by hand, When training on the machines I've learnt how to use other CAD based software's such as TEBIS and how to use te program to create machining paths.

The main practical side is very involved and is useful for a more visual learner, there is also an academic side that covers the broader aspect of engineering and whilst this involves a lot of classroom based learning it does also provide practical learning activities to keep you interested in the work being taught.

Its a lot better structured than previous years at the college mostly thanks to having an excellent support team that is BMW that pushes the collage to the appropriate expectations to ensure all their apprentices get the learning and qualifications that is expected of the apprentices, without this support some courses can be more difficult to get things done.

A reasonable amount, they provide all the resources or materials that are needed to ensure we can put in the full amount of effort into the coursework, these can include work laptops to help with working from home or even printing facilities at plant when the college printing service is process your print credits.

This has improved since our new qualification trainer from the college has arrived, he checks in more frequently to ensure were all on schedule and provides helpful feedback to ensure our wok is of the best quality. They have done this for 10 years now and only has one or two instances where students didn't qualify.

The qualification has helped gain a greater insight into the function, construction and restraints a die tool is capable of, in addition the college machining and CAD qualifications helped me prepare for my current role as a machinist, the only additional training that was required was learning how to integrate both together.

As apprentices the first step on the road is a teambuilding activity at Skern lodge to help get to know all the new apprentices and build a good relationship with the apprentice management team, other activities include many charity events such as the mountain challenge that help establish good networking between the various departments.

Yes

The company is very friendly and everyone working within the company are happy to help wherever they can to ensure you succeed the apprenticeship. The environment is very relaxed and so long as you get the work done within the expected time no one is looking over your shoulder or applying any pressure.

Research what toolmaking and industry dies are, whilst at first glance it might not pear interesting or have much going on when you dig deep there is a lot of hard work that goes into maintaining, repairing or producing one of these dies, in addition if you have a good understanding of the history this will help during the interview process.