Civils Asset management degree apprentice Review

At the moment my role is to help out the civil system engineers with their roles such as doing inspections and recording the data. Also organising jobs and stakeholder meetings with the relevant people for more complex jobs such as UAV inspections. Also liaising with external companies for them to do work for us as at times the workload is too large for us.

I have learned many new skills since starting my apprenticeship. I have developed my mechanical and electrical skills in college. In the workplace I have developed my teamwork skills as working in a team has become a vital part of my day to day job. I have also learned how to use new programs to complete my role. I have also developed many other skills.

I enjoy my programme because the tutors in college are supportive and provide help when it is needed reducing the amount of stress that you are put under. I also enjoy it because I am working in a friendly team that understand I wont be able to do everything straight away and provide help when needed.

At the beginning when we first started the course over a year ago it was not very well structured as we were the first year of civil apprentices, so when we got to the workplace there wasn't really much for us to do as we were not assigned specific teams to go and work with. However now that the second year apprentices are here it seems to be more organised as the first years are all in a team and the second years were put straight into a team and given a workload straight away

I receive a lot of support from my employer and team, whenever I am struggling with something I always get the support I need without any judgement as they understand that I cannot know everything as I am only an apprentice. Also when time off is needed for personal reasons they understand. Also when I need help with college work they can always find somebody who is a specialist in what I need help with.

When I need help in college the tutors are always available via email for any queries that I may have. Also all of the content that we work through in class is always put onto the VLE for us to access outside of class time. Also there is a revision class put on every Monday from 2-4 which anybody can attend and receive the help that they need.

Personally at the minute I don't feel like my college work helps at all in my role as I am working with the Civils team and we do maths, mechanical and electrical and non of this is applicable in my role at the moment. We would need to be learning about specific materials and construction techniques for it to be applicable.

Yes we're involved with the NOVUs group which is a networking group where we get involved with other young professional groups and eventually go on site visits to other sites to see how other sites are run compared to our own. Other than this there are no other extra curricular activities that I am aware of.

Yes

Sellafield as an employer is very understanding and there are a wide variety of people on this site so anything that you may need, someone will always be available to help you. Also it is such a big site so there will always be work to do and your work load will never be small.

Make sure that the grades you get are high enough to be accepted onto the course, do well the test and then just be confident in the interview. Also make sure to get as many things on your cv so that you stand out and have something interesting to talk about in the interview.