APEP PDD (Body Structures) Review

My department (Body Structures) is under Body + Chassis so my work concerns the rigid metal frame the car is built off. This mainly involves CAD work using CATIA V6. It also involves materials and manufacturing methods which can be interesting as there are many grades and manufacturing methods that can be used. Day-to-day work is the opposite of school in that you can do as much or as little as you want. If you don't have enough work to stay occupied then you will need to reach out to get some more which is very doable and encouraged although will be limited if a high level of CAD proficiency or design standard knowledge is required as you won't have developed these yet in the first year. This will vary by department as I imagine you can get stuck in on regular employee level work in other departments quicker. JLR has adopted the "agile" thing. For me this just means there is a daily meeting to go over issues which are logged on the JIRA platform. Depending on what phase of the car design process these issues could be other departments wanting you to change a part to allow access or conform to a design standard or CAE telling you your part isn't performing as specified. It's an interesting department in that sense as often the customer is another department since our suppliers only supply materials and make the parts we design wholly in-house. When applying for this apprenticeship I was allowed to list 3 departments of my preference. It did say at the time that there was no guarantee to get into any of these choices so ultimately you're put where they want you and you're expected to stay in that role for presumably your entire career if not at least the duration of your apprenticeship. The Early Careers team sees to this and limit your exposure to placements unless they're deemed necessary to develop pre-set KSBs (Knowledge Skills & Behaviours) which you're meant to develop to show the government their money is being well spent. This can be restrictive as if you don't like the role you're given then you don't have many options. Some older apprentices have managed to permanently change roles although these were rare circumstances and they still needed to do a placement to get involved in the new role they chose. Although was finished the apprenticeship you'll be able to pursue whichever role you like if you stay on within the company.

Mainly I have developed my CAD skills although will likely be learning it my entire career as it's quite complex and there is an infinite way to do things. Time management is definitely necessary and is a skill that will allow you to either sink or swim. Whether or not you learn new skills through work will depend on your department and what they want you to do.

Ultimately what this programme offers is the ability to be financially independent enough to pay a landlord 40% of your income (Leamington Spa is very expensive for rent but Coventry is much cheaper because it's Coventry) and another 30% to stay alive and spend the remaining 30% on activities that help you cope with those statistics! Jokes aside this programme does allow you to get a head start in life and keep your options open. You could stay on in the company and have a very comfortable career and most likely early retirement. You could do a masters after or go travelling and come back to a job after 1 year. You could even just leave and use the money you've saved to move country or pursue anything else. I believe it's what you make of it, you could do the bare minimum or get involved in a million different things. It's all down to you and this programme lays all the options on the table.

Work-side is great, there is a dedicated Early careers team and community that regularly organises social events at discounted prices e.g. hiking, go-karting, escape rooms. Managers generally are accommodating of the programmes structure and can help plan your work schedule alongside university. We have 1 day a week off for university during term time (defaulted as Fridays but can be any day you want). We also get extra academic days close to assignment deadlines or exams. You receive a timetable that outlines every block week of university (in-person and online) and assignment due date. Only thing is WMG release the next year's timetable (August-July) at the end of JUNE and JLR don't allow you to book annual leave on unknown days where a university day might be. WMG were very bad at the beginning with onboarding emails as they kept sending them out due to previous mistakes on their behalf. Work 9/10 Uni 4/10

Have regular meetings with line manager and you get assigned a mentor from an upper year group and workplace mentor.

Lecturers are available to contact through teams, email and on moodle (website where university hosts all the content) there are forums where you can ask a question and the lecturer reply and everyone can see it. Some lecturers even organise pre-submission calls where you can show them your work on a group assignment and they give you pointers on how to improve it.

For my specific role there has only been one module slightly relevant which explained how metals can be work hardened and how it happens on a micro scale. Still not useful in my work but can help with deeper understanding. It is unfortunate as one of the reason I chose this programme was I thought the university side would directly relate to my work but unfortunately it doesn't.

There are countless, as mentioned before there is an Early Careers Community that organise regular and one-off events for grads, undergrads and apprentices.

Yes

I would recommend this degree apprenticeship as it has a competitive salary, is decently well-run and has large cohorts so you'll meet loads of new people who are all like-minded. The car industry is also a great industry to be in as it moves fast and has a huge variety of interesting career paths within or outside the industry. You also get a free water bottle, notepad and pen during induction.

Treat it like applying for a job as that's how they will be treating it. Definitely do research about the company, do some practice interviews as teams meetings can be alien at first. Be able to demonstrate you can work well in a team as that's what you'll be doing every day of work.