Level 3 Mechanical Technician Apprentice Review

As a technician engineer with a mechanical bias, so far I have been involved in mainly design work using CAD software.

This is where the course is lacking, the way my scheme works is you have the employer (HR/Training), college assessors, and placement managers. In an ideal world they would communicate effectively to ensure that you are maximizing your learning potential over the apprenticeship, however there seems to be a real lack of this. Each party knows only what the learner tells them, so effectively you could be on placement and Training wouldn't have a clue what you are doing or what your working towards. It is totally dependent on the learner to make sure that they are on track (which isn't necessarily wrong), however if you have someone like myself who is straight out of secondary education but does not know how to apply the right attitude you can end up in a situation where the learning is minimal and you almost end up wasting valuable time that could be spent learning something new or working towards an NVQ criteria.

In my opinion my employer (as in Training rather than the Placement managers) offers the minimum amount of support, they offer what I would say is the essential amount but they could be doing more to ensure learners are on track and making the most of their time as previously mentioned. If you are someone that struggles without guidance or direction and is looking to do the course, I would recommend that you get comfortable with asking lots of questions and with being the first to prompt a conversation, if you rely on your employer for this you will be waiting for ever.

In my personal experience, after your first year in college they do not follow it closely. They might occasionally remind you of the criteria you have to meet, however they will not follow it up closely to ensure you are on track.

I would say that the learning material that you must know and do suits the role quite well, it explains most of the topics that you might work on in a basic amount of detail however as with most things you only get real experience from doing the task and learning that way.

Yes

I think if you are interested in the topic and are eager to become a well rounded engineer, it is a perfect place to learn and grow. However, this is on the condition that you understand you MUST put in the work for it, you cannot expect to walk through without sticking your neck out or putting yourself in uncomfortable situations.