Degree Apprentice Review

My role at Fujitsu involves working with customers to enable them to digitally transform internal systems, this can be from a wide range of things such as migrating applications to the cloud, moving from on premise to the cloud, or even migrating databases. My role in Fujitsu can vary due to being in a "Multi Skilled" Team

Yes, I have learnt a wide variety of skills being a Fujitsu, this has been through self-development. Fujitsu are great at providing funding towards training which is the one of the good things about working for them. I do however find that they lack a structured training plan for apprentices in terms of best practices, it would be nice to have some form of shadowing scheme in which you can see how senior colleagues work.

I have now started to enjoy the independence that you get from Fujitsu now that I have more experience and the work, I am currently doing is extremely interesting. Its nice to be treated as an equal by more senior colleagues and how they trust your judgement. There are the odd people that don’t do this with knowing you’re an Apprentice. The company culture is good, but it could be greatly improved, which has recently got worse in terms of rewarding employees.

The programme isn’t really organised very well, I was told coming into it that many apprentices find that they get promoted within the time they are studying towards their degree, at Fujitsu it seems that you are always stuff with the title “Degree Apprentice”. I have also been told that when it comes to the end of your degree within Fujitsu, apprentices are left in limbo in terms of next steps after the apprenticeship, an example being that someone didn’t find out what was happening until a month before finishing which if this is still the case when I finish it will be extremely frustrating.

Fujitsu is great in terms of support, they have a wide variety of support such as, mental health support, accessibility support, etc. As mentioned before Fujitsu didn’t provide any mentors in terms of technical stuff, we had to rely on other Apprentices who are in the cohort above. My manager is very supportive of me and enables me to increase my knowledge with any training that I would like to engage in. Financially Fujitsu have a yearly pay rise which is great, but the pay does not reflect experience you gain, an example of this is providing support with technical knowledge to senior colleagues and engaging with customers.

I study at ManchesterI study at Manchester Metropolitan University; they provide great support for apprentices if you need it and will also help with some things on a 1-2-1 bases. The first year of university was like you are re-doing you college year for anyone that did computer science in college, and I have found that the business modules provided no value to me. I have gained better business knowledge from Fujitsu than I have from the University

If I am being completely honest with this question, I feel that it has provided me personally with no value to perform better within my role at Fujitsu. I feel that most of the knowledge gained from university is very dated I don’t feel like I have gained any further knowledge about the industry than I have from Fujitsu.

Yes, there is a wide variety of activities that are held by the Fujitsu employees, we get 1 day per year that we are allowed to do voluntary work which is a great. It would be great to see more fun activities that funded company to help with networking and team building.

Yes

Because regardless of the flaws that Fujitsu might have, it has been great to work here, and I have become friends with some good people also. The funding for training is great also and I would advise anyone to take advantage of that as much as they can to further their career.

You don’t have to be technical to get on the apprenticeship scheme which I have found out from people’s backgrounds, although it does help to know about technical stuff. Fujistu assess how you work with others and whether you are a team player. Make sure you research about the company; they like to know you have done your homework.