Body Engineer Review

At the moment I am on placements away from my home team in the Lighting Department. I have just finished a placement in the Research Department where I was looking into the future of technologies for the company, looking mainly at lighting opportunities in order to link back to my home team. I have now start an electrical placement where I will be conducting a CAD project. At the moment I am going through the scoping stages of this where I am gathering key information and stakeholders.

In the apprenticeship my time at college and university has taught me a great deal of skills including that in the workshop such as milling, turning and fitting. In the workplace there has also been many opportunities for developing skills which I have carried out, such as the green belt project which has build on my project management skills.

Within the apprenticeship there are parts which I thoroughly enjoy and some parts I do not. Within work there are peaks and troughs in the work load and at the extremes of these it can either be quite stressful, particularly if there is also coursework to do, or fairly boring as there is not much to do.

The team I was allocated to within the company, body engineering, received a high intake of apprentices at the same time as me. This meant that a large amount of structure and organisation was put in place prior to us starting and has continued throughout, allowing us to get a very good individual experience despite the high numbers.

My manager and mentor gives me a large amount of support during my time in the workplace. When I'm on placement they ask me how I'm doing and check in on me to ensure I'm doing okay and that the placement department is sticking to the agreed plan that was sorted beforehand.

Being on block release it is difficult to have a good relationship with my tutor from university as I am always away from campus so there is no easy way to pop in to see him most of the time. However, during the week there is a tutorial session where we feedback our thoughts to him and he takes action on these for the future.

There are some links between the university studies and what I'm doing in the workplace. Things like manufacturing processes have assisted me in the past when I have been designing parts on CAD as they've made me think about how it's made so the design must suit this.

As far as I am aware, there are no sports clubs that I can join within work. However, there are a great number of social activities. Every team I've been in has had it's own Christmas event and the apprentice team in particular have a large number of social activities including a sports day.

Yes

The apprenticeship combines all the knowledge a person can get from a degree with a large experience of work for a massive, successful company. This allows them to implement knowledge immediately so it can be beneficial from the off and also allow them to filter what is more important after exams and coursework have been completed.

Be prepared for change. The apprenticeship looks into your behaviours to make you fitting for a workplace. This may require you to do things you are uncomfortable with but after doing them once you can be on them and become very successful. Also, manage your time well as the work and university studies can be challenging but if you can balance it well then it will all go well