Digital Technology Solutions - Software Engineering Path Review

I attend university lectures for a week every 5 weeks and all other time, I am attending work as a software engineer in a project team. I work in an office usually, however because of covid-19, we are working from home and attending lectures from home. I work in a project team with software engineers, senior software engineers, managers, graduates, placement students and other apprentices so there is a wide range of skills and experience.

Yes definitely! I have learnt a lot about software engineeing, as in programming, project skills, using Agile, databases, and much more. Our university lectures complement our learning, but I usually find that I learn so fast in the workplace that I already know a lot when the applicable module comes around.

I do enjoy my program, I love what I do and I get to meet lots of people through work and university which is great for me. However, doing a full-time job and a university degree can be rather stressful at times but I think they are working on spreading out the workload through the year to avoid this problem.

I would say the workplace is very well organised, as you would expect from a large company. However, due to my year being the guinea pig year for the course, lots of decisions in university are made last minute and I don't feel we are properly told what we need to do and when.

My manager is really helpful with my university work, he gives me any time I need to complete my work and I love that I have specialist colleagues to ask when I am stuck with my work. There is also study sessions at work for our module work as well.

Lecturers are usually happy to help with any question, you just email them and they are all pretty responsible and happy to call or meet up if you need more help. However, one of my lecturers replies fast but seems to go off on a tangent when you try to get help and our feedback to management about this hasnt been fixed.

The university work complements what we are doing in the workplace so quite often we learn the practical in work and the theory in uni. This can really help to better understand what is going on at work. For example: I have been working in a Agile team since I started, however I just completed my Agile module and it has helped me to understand why we do what we do a lot better.

My team do team socials once a month which is super fun, we go go-karting, do an escape room, go to a cool restaurant, etc which is really fun. There are socials with the wider company and department but I don't usually go to these. I wish there was an apprentice ball or something like that. You can also partake in university societies and clubs as well but sometimes they plan events during the daytime which we cant attend.

Yes

JLR is a brilliant company for degree apprenticeships, everyone is super friendly and helpful and its a great community to be part of. I've met lots of close friends here and I'm so glad I didn't decide to go down the traditional university route. It is a great environment to learn and you get to skip the graduate scheme when you finish which is a win win.

Be yourself! Go into the interview smiling and making friends with everyone there, help eachother out and show you have great ideas to bring to the table. Make sure you show your team skills and your interest in software engineering. Make sure to make the most of the assessment days and ask everything you want to know.