Maintenance technician Review

I'm an apprentice studying away from home to become an maintenance technician. The apprenticeship has been designed to resemble life on station with clock ins, daily safety messages, week as class leader, and much more. We are based on a navy base in Collingwood and then get the bus to travel to sultan. Throughout this first year our time has been split up to learn the basics and fundamentals of engineering for our second year. Our time is spent differently to school or college we will spend a week specifically on a single topic and then another week on something else. Outside of the work day, we all stay in the same place and so have a great chance to get to know people and plenty of activities are put on. Staying away from home is a great way to build independence and help us grow as people, this is further increased by the life skills trips we go to foreign countries learning the cultures and other peoples experiences.

Not only learning lots of skills relevant to my future job but its also helped grow me as a person. There has been a focus on presentations and being comfortable public speaking. its been prevalent that we are work on our own backs. this helps grow independence which is further reinforced by the living we have outside of work. we had the opportunity to visit an orphanage, concentration camp, Holocaust museum, PAKS powerstation, Bugey powerstation, all of these teach us something different; it maybe be knowledge in our field, humility and appreciation.

Being away from home has been tough for me, there is a drinking culture amongst apprentices however this is prevalent for many parts of the uk. This is an individual bias. I had higher expectations but it may be due to my lack of an inability to integrate myself properly. Many people do evidently enjoy it so i think i may be an anomaly in this instance. There is a safety culture

I feel mostly valued by eDf itself, the training is delivered by babcock who i feel like doesnt really value me that much, which is understandable. I have always been led to believe by employers that im capable and can do great things within the company, with lots of room to progress.

Its an extremely organised and well structured programme.

Support is good but at times somewhat limited. For example over summer we arent based here so it does actually make somethings harder.

Lots and lots of support

I think its fair but as being in the work force for 3 years it was a tough step down.

There are the opportunities if you seek them.

Yes

Its a great way to meet some amazing people, with brilliant opportunities. Its helped grow independence and confidence.

Do your homework on the company, the culture within edf is really really important to them. So having an understanding of this is beneficial