Aerospace Engineer Review

My role is to support the business area where I am placed, working alongside professional engineers and experts. Tasks can be wide-ranging, relating to one or multiple engine programmes, and can include data interpretation, problem solving of issues, planning future work packages or ensuring products meet certification standards.
I contact multiple people on a daily basis; within my team, area, business and the wider company, as well as external suppliers, contractors and customers. My responsibilities include ensuring any issues are flagged and recorded in the appropriate management system, as well as meeting deadlines for customers, both internally and externally, ensuring the projects flow smoothly.

From day 1 there was a clear plan for my programme. The first year was spent training both practically in the workshop and theoretically, to give me a solid understanding of basic engineering. The following 3 years are spent on business placements, dealing with real-world engineering problems and tasks in teams across the company.
I have a clear plan to finish my course, and despite altered timescales because of the pandemic, I know what I must do to finish on time.

The support available has been constant throughout, with a mentor assigned to each apprentice for the duration of their course, with (bi-)weekly meetings. Our placement manager changes with every placement, but we communicate and they know what is expected of you, and what you expect of them during a placement.
Support has been available during the pandemic and during furlough, to ensure we remained well and connected even when we were not in work. If we have any issues, there are multiple people we can raise these with and get swift responses, be they work-related or personal.

There are multiple channels of support available for our training provider, including personal mentors and support groups/representatives to communicate issues and information about our course. Our Personal Academic Tutor is a lecturer and is expert in the field in which we are studying, so any course-related questions can be answered directly by a lecturer.
During term-time, our group feedback any issues, however small, to the representatives from the group who feed back to the university in regular meetings. these are always actioned in a timely manner and are resolved or escalated as appropriate.

The qualification and my role at work go hand in hand, and I regularly find myself using skills taught at university in my work role. This can include mathematics, stress calculations, component analysis using software or using test data. This real-world application reinforces the theory we learn and shows it will prove valuable for our future role. The theory taught at university gives a deeper understanding of why the task at work may produce issues or require analysis, whilst at work we can then understand why and apply the processes we've learnt.

Yes

The quality of training and work I am able to do on my course has been excellent and I feel I can take on a role I the company easily upon completion of the course. Similarly, the skills I've learned are easily transferrable to other industries. The value of gaining a Rolls-Royce apprenticeship and a degree will not be lost throughout my career, as Rolls-Royce are recognised for their quality products and the training I have received has been superb.