Engineering Technician Review

I am a first year engineering technician apprentice. Since August, I have been studying for an HNC in engineering systems at college. This has been my day to day as it is a 5 day a week course. Currently, my main responsibility is to study and complete my coursework on time and to a high standard in order to achieve the best grade in my HNC and be as ready as possible for my second year.

As I have already completed an NC in mechanical engineering prior to starting this job, the majority of time has been spent developing my existing skills. I have continued to work on my time management skills, ensuring I complete all coursework before the assigned deadline. I have developed my teamwork and communication skills through a variety of tasks within the college workshop where we were tasked with working within a small group.

I enjoy some aspects of my programme. I enjoyed learning new skills within the workshops classes, such as the mechanical maintenance course. I feel, when it comes to the academic classes, it can be quite disorganised at times, and the timetable will change quite frequently. I also feel as if the level, and amount, of resources we received within our academic classes were poor and I was occasionally struggling to find material to study before assessments.

As I mentioned before, the workshop aspect was fairly organised and consistent throughout the year. However, the academic aspect of the course was at times a bit unorganised. It made things fairly confusing at times as we had to wait a while to find out crucial aspects about our course, such as the time and style of our assessment.

My employer is always on hand if we require any support within our course, and will always offer support if any problems are brought to their attention. Meetings can be scheduled once a week as well, in which we can discuss anything about the programme. We also have reviews every 12 weeks, which are useful for both the employer and me, in which we can discuss my progress within the course.

Within the college, it can vary between different classes on how much support we receive. Some lecturers are very helpful and will always be there to help answer any questions we have, or sort out any difficulties we are facing. However, there have been situations where I feel I was left to my own devices to sort problems out and certain lecturers were reluctant to help me sort out a certain problem I was facing.

I feel that there are a good number of modules within my HNC that well give me the skills required to perform better for when I enter the yard. For example, the shipbuilding principles came in very handy in learning the basics about the industry, even just down the basic jargon used within the yard.

As we are not working within the yard on a full time basis as of yet, it is hard to tell whether there are an abundance of extra-curricular activities available. However, the main one that comes to mind would be outward bound in November. This was a week long trip paid for my our employer, that consisted of a variety of team building tasks that were centred around the BAE systems values.

Yes

I feel as if when it comes to apprenticeships, especially within the engineering and manufacturing sector, BAE systems are up there with the best. They provide a great platform for learning and professional development. The only thing I would say is within the first year in college full time, I felt a touch distant from the business. I could've done with a few more days within the yard before second year.

It is always a great idea to learn the company values and behaviours, which you can find on the BAE systems website. It is also a good idea to research and get up to speed with any projects being worked on within the business at the time of applying, which can also be found on the website.