Aerospace Engineering Degree Apprentice Review

The day-to-day work varies dependent on which placement I am on, on some placements I have spent 75% of my day in meetings with project stakeholders, other placements have been very research based so looking at existing research, creating documentation that reflects the key points found in the research, communicating this to the team and applying it to the project being worked on, some placements are design based so taking improvements from the customer and changing the design. Other placements however have had very little work to give, so I have spent half a placement with no work and the other half filling out paperwork. To be brutally honest the majority of the placements given are project management so should be given to the PM apprentices, very few are hands on engineering and a lot of placement managers just use apprentices to do administrative work that has no benefit to the apprentices learning or development.

In theory, the structure is great. In practice its falling apart day by day. The structure of the scheme changed the year after I started so for the cohort I am in we spent 8 months training doing a Level 2 (which is yet to benefit me in any way), then we moved onto 6 x 5 month placements, we are now looking towards our final placement which lasts for 18 months, there has been no guidance around how we are to go about finding or organising this placement and after being told for almost 3 years we get to choose our 18mth placement, there is now the possibility we will not get to and the business will choose it for us. There has been very little communication around this so currently we are all in the dark. Throughout our 2 years of 5mth placements we complete a Level 4 diploma, dependent on your skills coach as to whether this ever gets marked, it is supposed to be completed within 2 years however there is again a serious lack of structure or guidance on how this should be done. You get 2x half days of explanation then you are left to it. There are also annual pay-rises that are meant to delivered in September however it is rare we receive these before December and even then there are sometimes issues with people being underpaid.

Prior to the new head of scheme starting, I was able to access a large amount of support through my skills coach, mental health first aiders, the Employee Assistance Programme and Occupational Health, however since the new scheme lead has started it feels much more difficult to access the support or to speak to the more senior early careers team members about any issues.
In regard to the countless issues we have been having with Blackpool and the Fylde College we feel as if we have had no support, we follow the process put in place and nothing seems to happen so we go around the process then get in trouble for not following the procedures.

The HELMs team at Blackpool and the Fylde College are incredibly supportive, they give feedback and advice on assignments and always respond within a timely manner. There are also a few lecturers who are willing to sit down with you 1-to-1 to discuss any difficulties with content or assignments. However, the head of operations seems to be absolutely useless. We have had multiple incorrect assignments/exams, the lecture content is regularly incorrect, our cohort rep has reported this information to the programme leads and operations manager on multiple occasions and yet the cohorts below us are experiencing the same problems.
The 8/10 is purely for the HELMs team and the minimal tutors that actually teach us.

The structure of the degree hinders us within our first few placements. The first aircraft specific module is not taught until you have been on the scheme for 12 months, this means that you are sent onto placements with potentially no knowledge on how an aircraft works. The quality of the teaching on technical modules (engineering principles, structural and dynamic analysis, propulsion, aerodynamics etc.) has been appalling, I have had to teach myself most of the content on multiple occasions. If you have not had any technical placements then university can be really challenging.

Yes

The amount of work required is draining, the quality of placements is decreasing, the knowledge gained from doing the degree is minimal when compared with that of someone doing a degree full time. I would recommend doing a degree and applying for the graduate scheme or industrial placements rather than spending 5 years doing the apprenticeship