Level 6 Applied Professional Engineering Programme Degree Apprentice Review

I am a third-year degree apprentice training to be an NVH (noise, vibration & harshness) engineer in one of JLR's vehicle semi-anechoic testing and development facilities. Most of my time in this role is spent instrumenting prototype vehicles with measurement equipment, such as microphones and accelerometers, and conducting tests through an online data measurement system. I spend Monday to Thursday onsite doing this and then we had off to study for university every Friday.

While the structure of each department's apprentices will differ based on the manager's preferences and the team's demands, from what I have experienced, everything has been very well structured and organised. In my department, we were given a clear roadmap for different placement opportunities that could be arranged throughout our four years; we also have informal fortnightly meetings to check in and talk about what projects we have been up to and formal check-in and placement discussion meetings every 6 months. Regarding the university side of my apprenticeship, we have block weeks of lectures roughly every 6 weeks. For these block weeks, the timings and rooms for each lecture are communicated at least a week or two in advance. Any lecture resources that will be used, like PowerPoint or questions, are all available online most of the time before the block week; this allows you to see and understand what will be done in these lectures.

We have an extensive support system in place for the apprenticeship, including the JLR early careers team (who oversee all the apprentices), a network of university staff (including university module tutors, course leaders and a specific university apprentice tutor), and within our departments, we have managers and mentors who work directly with us to train and support us in the job role.
Regarding progress meetings, from the work side, we have fortnightly informal meetings to check in and discuss what projects we have been up to and 6-monthly formal check-in and placement discussion. On top of these, as an overall check-in on our overall progress from both the university and work sides, we have formal 'Tripartite reviews' every 3 months.

As I have mentioned, as part of my overall support team above, we have a range of support from our training provider. Our module tutors teach us all the lectures online and during face-to-face block weeks. If there are any questions regarding a particular module, tutors are typically available and willing to help over teams (even when it isn't one of our block lecture weeks).
We also have a course leader and apprenticeship tutor who further support us through the apprenticeship and help us if we face any other issues.

Personally, I have not found that most of what I have been learning as part of my qualification directly links back to my specific job role, with the only links I can find being less obvious indirect links. However, it is worth noting I can still see how the knowledge we learn links back to other departments and the company overall, so even though I don't directly use the knowledge I learn in my role, I have had opportunities to use what I have learnt in my qualification to help me whilst I am on placements in different departments.

Yes

I have really enjoyed every moment so far at JLR and i have found that no matter where you go everyone is so friendly and welcoming. Even though it is such a big company spread over multiple different sites, the atmosphere is very inviting and calm which really has made the difference as someone who came straight out of school.