Degree Apprenticeship

Anyone who's done a degree apprenticeship (especially if you moved out) tell me your experience below, I have a decision to make.

I'm a degree apprentice, currently in my third year. I have moved out a couple months after starting my apprenticeship.

My experience with the company and the apprenticeship altogether has been largely positive. I have developed my skills and knowledge at work far beyond what I could ever hope I'd get from a standard qualification.

The wages aren't great but they're enough for me to be able to live by myself, have a social life (I go out with friends multiple times a week), and occasionally treat myself (e.g. recently I bought myself a £60 video game, went to some festivals, bought a car etc.).

I can easily say that this apprenticeship is one of the best things that happen to me, or rather best decision I have made.

How did u find the transition into full time work?

Also that's amazing! Congratulations

I honestly anticipated it would be much worse than it really was.

I always thought I'm well-suited for academic life, but once I started working I realized I prefer this so much more.

To anybody who is even moderately well-adjusted, full time work should not be an issue (assuming the environment is okay). The hours are not much different to full time education like secondary school or sixth form. The main difference in the day are the breaks. At school/uni/college you get loads of breaks, which isn't the case at work. My company gives us an hour break total, which should be made up of 3 separate breaks (lunch + 2 shorter breaks). However, many people tend to either merge the breaks together, split them up even more (especially smokers, I know so many people who would rather go out for a smoke every half an hour than have 2 normal breaks).

I think it's a bit different in terms of the focus as well. Education seemed more structed in terms of planning out the day and having specific periods where you have to concentrate on a given task (e.g. I "only" need to make notes, or listen to the lecture/lesson, or revise, or do my assignments etc), whereas work is more flexible and versatile and my tasks depend on the business needs, my own planning ability, or sometimes even how I'm feeling (e.g. I've had days when I came in sick to work and I guess it must have been very noticeable because everybody went easy on my workload).

I'd say the transition was pretty smooth. Although I remember being really stressed out that now I'm surrounded by all these adults with real jobs who are good at what they do and they will expect the same from me. However, in reality they all understand I'm just an apprentice, I'm there to learn and I will make mistakes. And most of them are pretty chill and not half as competent as I imagined (which could be worrying when I put it like this, but really we're all just humans and nobody can excel at everything they do).

After a while you also get the hang of how to interact with different people - e.g. this person is a supervisor/manager etc. but they're super chill so I can banter with them, ask them for help etc; this person is a bit of an ass; this person gets easily offended; this person is super social and will talk to me for 2 hours straight if I don't stop them etc.

Thank you so much for your response. You definitely make working seem more approachable as I thought it would be completely differently structured. I think I would prefer having less breaks as I am most productive when working in longer blocks.

How was the "degree" side of it? Do you work on days where it's half term (when you wouldn't be at uni?)

No problem at all, I like sharing my apprenticeship experiences, good or bad. Especially if it helps others make a more informed choice.

The degree side of the apprenticeship has a lot of angles to it if I'm being honest. For my company, half of the degree is carried out at uni and half at college which works with the uni. The college I honestly kind of hated for variety of reasons, some being my fault some really just coming down to lack of luck. In most of my modules the class size was very small which I see as a plus, however, I didn't get a long too well with half of them because of some previous interactions we've had. None of us bonded too much so there was none of that "chilling at the pub on your lunch break" kind of thing that a lot of my fellow apprentices do. The day was really quite long and I feel like I could have easily done 90% of the work from home so coming in just felt like a complete waste of my time. The lecturers really varied in terms of their teaching ability, especially since some of them had industry experience but no teaching experience. The college facilities were also so so since a college doesn't have the same kind of budget as a university. So all in all, college was definitely not my favourite part, but a lot of my apprentice friends seemed to enjoy it.

I have recently had a tour of the uni I'm going to go to and it looks amazing, and I already know some of the normal full time students there; there are also loads of places around like shops, pubs etc. The uni has a very cool library and a lot of dedicated study spaces, multiple canteens, very nice lecture halls etc. The lecturers I've met so far seem fairly competent which checks out with what I've been told by other people who were previously taught by them. I've also been told the day is going to be shorter, and getting there is going to be much easier than it was for the college. All's looking good so far. So the university definitely seem like a huge upgrade from the college and I am very excited to start the next semester.

In terms of assignments, some of them I genuinely found interesting and enjoyed doing, others not so much but I think that's just a general student experience. The lecturers were pretty lenient on the deadlines, understanding that all of us have full time jobs.

Additionally, my company would occasionally allow me to complete my coursework during work hours if I let them know I needed some more time with it. I was also able to take study leave as needed (e.g. before exams etc.).

In regards to your question "do you work on days when it's half term" - there is no industry standard to this as it varies from company to company. However, previously I have stayed home during half terms to complete coursework and do revision (at least hypothetically) which was fine with my company. On the other hand, when I finished my last semester I let my company know and started coming in 5 days a week. The switch wasn't tough at all to be honest, I really do like my job and don't mind being at work 5 instead of 4 days a week. I get plenty of holiday too so unless I'm working crazy hours I'm not worried about burn out or anything.

Okay thank you!

I have my final assessment soon. It's so cool that your employer is flexible regarding your studies. Also rip with the college but at least it's temporary.