Apprentice Researcher Review

Four days a week is spent within network optimisation team within the research department. Daily work varies on the project, but ultimately involves data exploration and analysis into energy consumption or similar areas within our network in order to identify energy-saving initiatives. One day a week is spent attending lectures and doing online learning, however, this apprenticeship is demanding and requires lots of evenings and weekends to be spent in order to complete university work to a high standard.

From BT, I feel that the programme is structured well. For the first two years, we rotated around four different teams, giving us exposure to different areas to hone our specialism in. After this, we return to our chosen teams for the remainder of the apprenticeship. Our return to our teams was disrupted within the reorganisation but was eventually sorted. I've heard that apprentices in other areas of the business haven't been so lucky.
From the University of Exeter, I feel that the course is poorly structured. It is unnecessarily complex and has little focus on technical skills and much more focus on reflection which I wouldn't expect from a computer science course and I don't appreciate. The lecturers can be unhelpful, the e-learning is extremely uninspiring, and the marking of assignments is embarrassing from a Russel Group university.

All managers that I've had have been extremely supportive in providing me with help and time in order to progress in both work and university. We have been given the week before exams as standard time off and no longer have to take annual leave. Colleagues are always happy to help me.

Every time that I have attempted to challenge any marking discrepancies or mishandlings, I have essentially been sent around in circles whilst being told there's nothing I can do by the university mentors in place to help with these exact cases.
For example, there was a clear discrepancy in one of my assignments around not mentioning a data analysis technique which I had. I highlighted both my assignment and feedback and was told that I did well anyway so I should just forget it.
Another example includes assignment feedback being delayed for a very long time (even when a one-minute late submission will be heavily penalised) and the feedback was simply one line 'well-written but slightly over page/word count'. This resulted in another email chase-around which led nowhere and destroyed my motivation. Eventually, the lecturer provided more detailed feedback (still not to the expected level), all of which focused on the style of the report (which only accounted for 5% of the marks in the mark scheme) and none of the technical discussion for which I had spent so much of my time learning.
After dedicating so much of my personal time and effort into university work, it is shameful how little is reciprocated. I can only find comfort in knowing I haven't paid for this course personally. Whilst there are discussions around our wellbeing with our university mentors, they don't seem to be able to do anything.

As a majority of our course focuses on reflection in the workplace, as opposed to technical knowledge, lots of time feels wasted. It's a nice idea to reflect and learn on things, but the extent to which we do it doesn't work in practice. The teaching of software engineering, security, and data analysis have been valuable, however, and have helped my understanding around the areas which help me to perform better in my projects. I feel I learn the majority of my skills through experience in the workplace with lots of learning being self-guided.

Yes

Ultimately, the experience gained, having university funded, and having experts to ask questions is extremely valuable and sets us up in a great place. Everyone is very willing to support us. I think the downfalls come with the university course, not getting the university life, not being around many young people, and this apprenticeship taking up so much personal time.