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Does this sound like a good degree apprenticeship?

Hi guys!


I have a place at an RG uni to study Comp Sci. However, I have been applying for apprenticeships, and managed to land a degree apprenticeship in software engineering.


It's at a smaller company, I think it said 50 employees at most, and they say they prefer to recruit based on attitude and then train employees for the skills they need. They take on graduates and overall the age of the company is quite young. From what I can see they're quite diverse - for example, my apprenticeship duties describe SQL programming, but at the interview they mentioned another employee working on front end work.


The apprenticeship salary is listed at £14k per year, but they suggested that when I finish they would like to employ me with the graduate salary of £25k, and suggested after that it wouldn't be too long before I could become senior in my role and earn £38k, around 3 years after completing the apprenticeship (obviously this is what they said but I have no way of guaranteeing it).


What do you guys think? Does this sound like a good apprenticeship, or should I be concerned because it's a smaller company/less reputable uni? Does anyone have experience with either apprenticeships or CS at uni?

Thanks guys :smile:
Reply 1
What university will you be working with alongside the apprenticeship, if you do decide to take it? Most of the time, it's also a RG.
Original post by Xarao
What university will you be working with alongside the apprenticeship, if you do decide to take it? Most of the time, it's also a RG.

It would be SHU, so not a RG :smile:
Reply 3
Original post by TeacupAndTragedy
It would be SHU, so not a RG :smile:

Meh, people really don't care about RG. You just need to list the positives and negatives and decide from that.

Pros:
- Degree paid for you
- A salary
- 3-4 years of experience when you graduate (so if you do leave, you'll be ahead of 99% of graduates)
- No student loan debt

Cons:
- Not a RG
- Far less free time available
- No time for societies
- Weekdays and weekends will be occupied with work/coursework/revision
Original post by Xarao
Meh, people really don't care about RG. You just need to list the positives and negatives and decide from that.

Pros:
- Degree paid for you
- A salary
- 3-4 years of experience when you graduate (so if you do leave, you'll be ahead of 99% of graduates)
- No student loan debt

Cons:
- Not a RG
- Far less free time available
- No time for societies
- Weekdays and weekends will be occupied with work/coursework/revision

Thanks for the summary!

The main reason I considered the degree apprenticeship was no student loan debt, so I'm gonna consider how much I value that over the 'uni experience'.

Thanks :smile:
small companies are known to be very bad with apprentices when it comes to training and overworking them. If your goal is to work at faang or make a lot of money id recommend uni over this. also if its a small company theres a higher risk of redundancy
Original post by Gent2324
small companies are known to be very bad with apprentices when it comes to training and overworking them. If your goal is to work at faang or make a lot of money id recommend uni over this. also if its a small company theres a higher risk of redundancy

Thanks for your reply - is there a difference in earning potential between those who student a BSc traditionally vs through a degree apprenticeship? I actually thought I'd read recently that apprentices earn an average of £4k more per year upon completing their apprenticeship.
Original post by TeacupAndTragedy
Thanks for your reply - is there a difference in earning potential between those who student a BSc traditionally vs through a degree apprenticeship? I actually thought I'd read recently that apprentices earn an average of £4k more per year upon completing their apprenticeship.

yes, but its more complicated than that.

if you get an apprenticeship with apple, amazon, facebook, microsoft, cisco then you will get a good salary, but more importantly a good name on your CV so when you apply to other software jobs no one is going to think that youre stupid because you dont have a russel degree, since you worked at faang or a similar company, they wont care.

thats the main advantage of apprenticeship, youre basically changing a good degree into a good company instead. The problem i see with this one, is that i imagine the company is not well known, so it will be more difficult to get into a big software company with a less known degree with a less known company.

Apprenticeships can be really good, but personally i think if money is your goal, it needs to be with a big company to enhance you CV, and you also need to have good A level grades (ABB at the least) because you dont want potential employers thinking that you were too stupid to go to uni.

in your case, id recommend going to uni instead of that apprenticeship
Original post by Gent2324
yes, but its more complicated than that.

if you get an apprenticeship with apple, amazon, facebook, microsoft, cisco then you will get a good salary, but more importantly a good name on your CV so when you apply to other software jobs no one is going to think that youre stupid because you dont have a russel degree, since you worked at faang or a similar company, they wont care.

thats the main advantage of apprenticeship, youre basically changing a good degree into a good company instead. The problem i see with this one, is that i imagine the company is not well known, so it will be more difficult to get into a big software company with a less known degree with a less known company.

Apprenticeships can be really good, but personally i think if money is your goal, it needs to be with a big company to enhance you CV, and you also need to have good A level grades (ABB at the least) because you dont want potential employers thinking that you were too stupid to go to uni.

in your case, id recommend going to uni instead of that apprenticeship


Thanks for your opinion. The company is sort of well known, but not as known as the companies you've listed. I'll think through it some more and decide, I've emailed the employer to learn more about what I could be learning during the apprenticeship, so I'll see how that goes :smile:

(I got AAB at A Level so I'm not concerned about that bit, lol)
Original post by TeacupAndTragedy
Hi guys!


I have a place at an RG uni to study Comp Sci. However, I have been applying for apprenticeships, and managed to land a degree apprenticeship in software engineering.


It's at a smaller company, I think it said 50 employees at most, and they say they prefer to recruit based on attitude and then train employees for the skills they need. They take on graduates and overall the age of the company is quite young. From what I can see they're quite diverse - for example, my apprenticeship duties describe SQL programming, but at the interview they mentioned another employee working on front end work.


The apprenticeship salary is listed at £14k per year, but they suggested that when I finish they would like to employ me with the graduate salary of £25k, and suggested after that it wouldn't be too long before I could become senior in my role and earn £38k, around 3 years after completing the apprenticeship (obviously this is what they said but I have no way of guaranteeing it).


What do you guys think? Does this sound like a good apprenticeship, or should I be concerned because it's a smaller company/less reputable uni? Does anyone have experience with either apprenticeships or CS at uni?

Thanks guys :smile:

Hi @TeacupAndTragedy, congratulations on landing yourself a degree apprenticeship! You can explore our degree apprenticeships page to see how our previous students got on with their degree apprenticeships and see what they've been able to do with it :h:Good luck with you decision and let me know if you have any questions about studying at Sheffield Hallam. We also have a weekly live chat every Wednesday 1-4pm so you can speak to our advisers across a range of services including applications, student support and accomodation.

- Ella
Original post by TeacupAndTragedy
Hi guys!


I have a place at an RG uni to study Comp Sci. However, I have been applying for apprenticeships, and managed to land a degree apprenticeship in software engineering.


It's at a smaller company, I think it said 50 employees at most, and they say they prefer to recruit based on attitude and then train employees for the skills they need. They take on graduates and overall the age of the company is quite young. From what I can see they're quite diverse - for example, my apprenticeship duties describe SQL programming, but at the interview they mentioned another employee working on front end work.


The apprenticeship salary is listed at £14k per year, but they suggested that when I finish they would like to employ me with the graduate salary of £25k, and suggested after that it wouldn't be too long before I could become senior in my role and earn £38k, around 3 years after completing the apprenticeship (obviously this is what they said but I have no way of guaranteeing it).


What do you guys think? Does this sound like a good apprenticeship, or should I be concerned because it's a smaller company/less reputable uni? Does anyone have experience with either apprenticeships or CS at uni?

Thanks guys :smile:


I’ve completed a degree apprenticeship at a very large company and completed my L2 and L3 at a small company.

i found that at smaller companies you often get to be involved in more of the process, where larger companies break down the process and hand you those parts at greater frequency.

You’ll find you’d actually gain broader experience and responsibility at a small company, where as at a larger company you’d have to rotate around departments like I did.
To be honest, this sounds absolutely fantastic. You'll be so in demand before you even graduate. :rambo:
Original post by Sheffield Hallam University
Hi @TeacupAndTragedy, congratulations on landing yourself a degree apprenticeship! You can explore our degree apprenticeships page to see how our previous students got on with their degree apprenticeships and see what they've been able to do with it :h:Good luck with you decision and let me know if you have any questions about studying at Sheffield Hallam. We also have a weekly live chat every Wednesday 1-4pm so you can speak to our advisers across a range of services including applications, student support and accomodation.

- Ella


Thank you, I'll attend one of the live chats!
Original post by Gent2324
yes, but its more complicated than that.

if you get an apprenticeship with apple, amazon, facebook, microsoft, cisco then you will get a good salary, but more importantly a good name on your CV so when you apply to other software jobs no one is going to think that youre stupid because you dont have a russel degree, since you worked at faang or a similar company, they wont care.

thats the main advantage of apprenticeship, youre basically changing a good degree into a good company instead. The problem i see with this one, is that i imagine the company is not well known, so it will be more difficult to get into a big software company with a less known degree with a less known company.

Apprenticeships can be really good, but personally i think if money is your goal, it needs to be with a big company to enhance you CV, and you also need to have good A level grades (ABB at the least) because you dont want potential employers thinking that you were too stupid to go to uni.

in your case, id recommend going to uni instead of that apprenticeship


I kind of disagree with this because you could literally fail your alevels and still get into university. Whereas an apprenticeship you need a set grade to get onto a good apprenticeship
Original post by Aluebhosele
I kind of disagree with this because you could literally fail your alevels and still get into university. Whereas an apprenticeship you need a set grade to get onto a good apprenticeship

Not always lool, some of these companies can give you offers regardless. You have to remember, apprenticeship are run by mostly businesses which need labour(workers) so if i make a good impression at FAANG sometimes (not always) it can overthrow my grades completely. Unless, of course my A-levels were like UUU

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