Eng Tech apprentice Review

First year apprentice. I spend a majority of my time in the workshop learning various skills from hand fitting to electrical skills to welding. On a thursday there is a day in which we are completing our foundation degree. Here we do a large variety of topics such as material sciences and business studies.

Yes, My practical skills have been greatly improved through working here. the workshop days allows you to work from a set engineering drawing and achieve projects using new skills you are taught. the degree of accuracy requires allows you to ensure that your work is always to a high level of quality and so therefore your skills are improved significantly with each project you complete.

The programme is generally enjoyable. However there are sometimes communication issues which can get very frustrating as the tutors and managers do not understand what is going on in eithers department leaving us a bit stuck. As well as this, in the foundation degree one of our tutors struggles with teaching us a lot of the time, he has poor communication and frequently gets the topic information wrong which is massively frustrating. However, in the workshop the tutors are generally helpful and proffesional and work gets done on time and to a high standard.

The organisation in the workshop itself is very good and has never caused any issues. However, in our contract it was stated that we would also be recieving a level two qualificaiton for all of our work downstairs. however, this has since been changed and we are now not recieving this due to a lack of structure and organisation. this has upset many apprentices and caused alot of issues.

The workshop tutors and one of the degree tutors are massively supportive, our bmw managers are also very good. However one of our managers has not been particularly supportive. there was a group of us who struggled with maths and so we were promised tutor support and other measures to be put in place. the tutor was not able to attend and since then it has been completely forgotten about adding a large stress to us as we have exams to pass. This could have been dealt with far better.

Support has been pretty minimal from our training provider. Promises have been made for us to recieve tutor support as mentioned before but this has not happened. The BMW managers are greatly supportive but the training provider has massively lacked here. this may not be true for the entire group but for 4 or 5 of us it has been a mmassive issue and more support will be needed down the line or we are going to struggle even more.

Some sections of it help allot, material sciences allow you to understand and select materials for the job better than If you were going into it blind. However, something such as thermodynamics doesnt currently add anything, im sure it would be able to in the future but within the year 1 training it does not help.

Yes, apprentices have set up various sports activities such as football or netball. There are also events to do with electronics such as competitions. These are good ways to meet other apprentices and to network amongst other plants and years. They are easy to get involved in as all it takes is an email to your manager, tutor, or the person hosting the event.

Yes

It is a very good oppurtunity to work for a world leading car manufacturer and allows you to learn some very important skills, get a degree and get paid for it. as well as htis there is an almost gaurrunteed job at the end of it which is very well paying and for a very secure company.

Ensure you aks alot of questions and that you are able to bridge the communication gap between tutors and your employer otherwise it can be confusing at times. be punctual and respectful and alsways try to network as much as posisble and leave a good impression as you usually end up meeting people multiple times.