Engineering Degree Apprenticeship Review

I am an Engineering Degree Apprentice. I am working towards a BEng in Electronic and Computer Engineering. In a week, I go to university two days a week and work onsite for the remaining 3 days of the week. The first year of the apprenticeship is mainly professional development oriented, which includes going to careers events at different schools, building a small STEM project to be used at big events, and many other activities.

During my studies at university, I have learnt lots about electronics and programming. I have also learnt a lot about the business and team work skills whilst being on site, which is a very useful skill when working in an engineering company as many projects are done as a team, so being able to work well in a team environment is crucial.

I have enjoyed my time on the apprenticeship so far, I enjoy learning new things every day and meeting new people. Every day is beneficial on this apprenticeship, as I feel I am always creating new relationships and seeing the companies beliefs in action. The apprenticeship is what I imagined it to be, I enjoy the split between university and work as it breaks up the week nicely.

During induction you spend a week of doing different activities around site to get you familiar to where the buildings are and certain people. You will also be assigned a mentor (who will be a third year apprentice), this will be somebody who you can talk to if you have any questions or worries. In the first year of the apprenticeship you will not join a project, but will spend time with your cohort, which is nice as it gives you time to get to know them really well.

Support is very good from the employer, for the first month or so of the apprenticeship, each morning I had a quick meeting in the cafe with my manager to discuss what we would be getting up to that day, and it was nice to have this as it allows you to get to know your manager and lets you settle into the job easily. Having a mentor is also provides a lot of support as they will be there to look over any tasks you are working on and offer help if you need it.

In the first three years of the apprenticeship, you will study at Gloucestershire College (now in Gloucester, but moving to Cheltenham site in September 2019) and then for the final two years of the apprenticeship, you will study at UWE in Bristol. The support received from Gloucestershire College is good, the lectures are detailed and help is readily available if needed.

I feel like in the coming years of the apprenticeship, I will be able to use the skills from my qualification much more when I go on rotation. During my first year, I used skills that I learnt from college on the project that we do, it has helped with understanding some of the programming and electrics within the project.

At my work there are many engaging extra-curricular activities to get involved in such as; weekly football matches, helping out at big events such as Bath and West, and Cheltenham Science Festival. You will also have the opportunity to help out at many schools around Gloucestershire to mentor students and help out with activities such as STEMWorks and Go4SET. The site is located in Bishops Cleeve which makes it easy to get into Cheltenham town.

Yes

I would recommend this apprenticeship to a friend as I believe it is a very well structured and run scheme. You will be put on real life engineering projects with 6 month rotations to allow you to determine the exact line of work you would like to roll off onto once you finish the apprenticeship.

The application process goes as follows; send in application from GE Careers website (https://www.ge.com/careers/), you will then be invited for a video interview, once this has been completed, you will then be invited to an assessment centre. Tips and advice I would give to applicants, is to be yourself during the application process, don't pretend to be someone you are not! Make sure you can also work well in teams, as you will complete team activities during the assessment centre.