Engineering Apprentice Review

My role as a third year engineering Apprentice at Gatwick Airport is shadowing experienced technicians to learn practically how to perform tasks that I can then later do with supervision of a technicain. Day-to-day can vary a lot depending on the department but typically it will begin with the shift hand over from the night shift to the day shift or vice-versa. This will provide your shift with any information that could be useful to know during your shift. We'd then be assigned jobs from our team leader and make a plan for the day. This can be anything from faults that need rectifying to planned maintenance to ensure the systems run how they are intended. The shifts I do are 7am-7pm and 7pm-7am which rotate on a 28 day shfit pattern which provides a generous amount of days off.

I've learnt lots of skills and developed pre-existing skils while being an apprentice as it can be very busy with lots of oppotunities to practice and learn while on the job. For example my skill of hypothesising what could be the cause of a fault on a piece of equipment has gotten much better due to the experience I have gained working on different types of systems. A new skill that I have learnt is using the fire detector isolation software to safely isolate smoke detectors to ensure they do not go into an alarm when projects are being carried out and unnecessarily evacuating the area.

I really enjoy my apprenticeship to the point where whenever somebody asks me about it or asks what I do, I begin to smile and talk about all the cool things we do and how much I love what I do. I've become best friends with the people in my apprenticeship and have made friends all over the company as everybody is very friendly and make you feel welcome. The work I do at work provides me with deep satisfaction when completed as they provide a challange and the feeling of doing something that makes a difference to the airport. Everyone I've met have been really friendly and eager to teach me new things.

The structure of the program is really good as in the first year you do 5 days a week at college to provide you with a good foundation of knowledge with some practical skills and some theory. Durig the holidays you go into work onto departments which allows you to start to apply what you've been learning about. In the second year you do 4 days a week at work and 1 day a week in college spending about 4 months on a department at a time. This means you're developing your practical skills a lot more while still learning more theory that helps your understanding of equipment at work. In the third year you go onto shift work which is doing 12 hours shifts and also nights which really gives you a deeper integration into the work and allows you to spend more time learning and developing your skills while doing 1 day a week at college doing a HNC. The fourth year is the same as the third year structure wise but what you learn at college will be different along with different departments at work.

I receive a lot of support from my manager who is always able to answer my questions and goes above and beyond to help when he can. If I have any questions he makes it easy to ask them and helps with getting any problems I have sorted which is incredible valuable and means you can focus more on learning. The HR team are very friendly and are happy to help. My mentor contacts me regularly to see how I am getting on which reassures me that help it only a message away from getting the help I need. The overall attitude to support towards me is very good as everyone wants you to succeed as they are all passionate about the apprenticeship.

At East Surrey College the facilities are state of the art with some great equipment and teachers. The teachers support you really well with small class sizes so you can get more attention and help when stuck on anything which is important when you are learning. Some of our subjects are tailored to our jobs specifically such as the equipment we use at Gatwick giving us a better understanding. If you have any learning difficulties then the college is there to help and make an adjustments if needed which I have personally found to be comforting to know.

I believe my qualifications I have done at college have helped me to gain a better understanding of the equipment at work. This means that I feel more confident conducting the jobs that I do and can fault find on systems using my knowledge learnt such as on electronic circuits understanding how it operates and where the potential fault could occur. Without these qualifications I may struggle to fault find and could turn a quick job into one which takes a long time. For example this year I'm learning a lot about electronics and advanced circuits work which can help to be more confident in my activities at work as I understand what im doing.

Every year we do Outward bound in the summer which is where all the apprentices go off for the week to places like the Lake District and Wales and do team building activities such as hiking, abseiling, rock climbing etc. At Outward bound you get to know the other apprentices really well and is really good fun and since we are all in the same bout everyone understands your situation. As apprentices we do lots of volunteering at STEM and careers events promoting engineering and the apprenticeship which is good fun and gives of satisfaction knowing I'm helping to inspire the next generation of engineers.

Yes

I would recommend this apprenticship to a friend because I don't believe there are many working environments that are as interesting and nice to be in due to the airport being more of a family and a pleasure to work in every day. Each day is different to the last and having problems you have to fix makes it more interesting than any other jobs. I feel extremely proud to be an engineering apprentice at Gatwick Airport and look forward to progressing to become a qualified technician.

My biggest advice would be to do some sort of activity to do with engineering in your own time to show your passion and make yourself stand out. Do projects that challenge yourself and document it showing any problems you had and how you overcame that as that shows your determination which is what we look for at Gatwick airport. I believe at Gatwick we select people who are passionate about what they do and work well in teams. Be friendly to everyone and listen and ask questions as it shows your interest and drive.