Business apprentice Review

I am currently on my second placement in the F-35 manufacturing area of BAE. My day to day roles at the moment are to updated and improve different delivery packs with different infographics, that are then used day to day for other people in the office and on the shop floor.

Throughout my apprenticeship scheme I have learned and developed many skills including It skills, excel, communication, English writing and professionalism. As I am not even half way through my apprenticeship scheme I strongly believe I will learn and develop countless more skills that will help me in my career and exit role.

Personally i very much enjoy my programme and the placements I have had so far. I'm looking forward to my next two placements to gain more knowledge and experience in the business. However I understand that some people do not like this scheme down to their placement in which they are given and don't have much control over if the don't like/want to do that placement.

In general my apprenticeship scheme is structure very well and we have been given a file which has the exact dates and time of everything we do throughout the scheme so we can inform managers and colleagues in advance of up coming events/college days etc. The only thing I would say that wasn't very organised was the induction week.

Support within the apprenticeship scheme for me personally has been great. Whenever I have needed something a skills coach has always been there and even if my skills coach is busy another skills coach will always be there to help. I haven't had any problems regarding the support within this scheme.

Support regarding our assignments is great as if we don't understand something we can always get help from a skills coach. Sometimes some of the things that work towards our qualifications can be quite difficult but there is always support there for when it is needed from multiple people.

The qualification helps me perform better in my role as I'm constantly learning different skills and behaviours within the business that I can use. Mainly I am learning a lot from the placement but the qualification helps with interpersonal and communication skills, which helps fill the gaps from the knowledge of the business

There are more than enough extra curriculum activities and I try to get myself on as many as I can for the experience and networking. For example I helped out at a charity cake sale and networked with other apprentices and also raised money for charity. I will try to get on more extra activities if I can.

Yes

I believe that BAE is a great company to work for and going through the apprenticeship scheme is the best way to be slowly introduced to the company without feeling to overwhelmed. There are that many different roles there is always going to be a job you like doing here and the benefits of being a BAE employee is great.

My main advice is to just be yourself. Everyone is welcome in BAE everyone is very friendly. Another bit of advise I would give is to not try to do as much as you can work wise as it can get very overwhelming very quickly and I experienced this myself.