After graduating with a business and marketing degree and becoming a full-time mum, I reached a point where I needed to decide on my career path. During the pandemic, we were all connected via apps. This was when I developed my interest in programming languages and how these applications worked.
I started with YouTube tutorials, code academy and CS50, a free online course from Harvard University, and to my surprise, I was enjoying programming over a business career path. At that time, I decided to step into the tech industry.
My independent online training gave me a basic understanding of computer science and programming languages. I have always enjoyed learning by applying what I have been taught, which pushed me to look for real-life experiences. After exploring my options, I narrowed it down to an apprentice route and a boot camp. Comparing the two, I opted for an apprentice route as this was 12 months long and personally, I thought it was a better choice to make when balancing family and work life.
Eligibility criteria for apprenticeship
Specific criteria need to be met to get an apprenticeship. You must be 16 or over, living in England and not attending full-time education. These are some basic ones, but if you were not born in the UK, there is more to consider. As my home country is Pakistan, I needed permanent residency status in the UK and needed to have studied at least GCSE level. Thankfully, I had residency status and a degree. I had to get my educational documents evaluated and the equivalency checks for the UK through UK ENIC, during this process I had to pay a small amount to get my results back quickly. After ticking all the boxes, I started to look for an apprenticeship.
Apprenticeship begins
Baltic apprenticeship guided me throughout this journey, and I secured a level 3 apprentice role as a Full-Stack Software Developer at Pecometer. In the initial days of my apprenticeship, I took my time to become comfortable with the office environment, team members, technology and framework the company use. As I stepped in as an apprentice, I was not shy to ask for help, and everyone in the office was accommodating and supportive. I had my onboarding session with Baltic a few weeks in, which gave me a better understanding of the next 12-15 months. For the first few months, I spent my time understanding the daily activities a developer should do and understanding different projects and the company ticketing system.
Training and projects
While gaining practical experience, I attended training sessions and completed the projects simultaneously. After every six weeks, I attend a virtual training session delivered by a qualified coach and submit a project afterwards. Apprentices must record their skills against the Knowledge-Skill-Behavior standard in the KSB matrix. More detail for that can be found here: Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education logo. After completing projects, they will be added to my portfolio, which will be used later in my final assessment. After completing six tasks over 12 months, I will have to complete a final project to finish my apprenticeship, covering everything I have done in the past six projects.
Help and support
After reading the above paragraph, this might sound daunting to some readers, but I can assure you that there is a lot of support and guidance available at every step. An apprentice will be well looked after and supported by the training provider and the company. This support has made me more confident and helped me reach where I am today.
I hope this has helped someone considering an apprenticeship route, as I would highly recommend it, and it’s a great way to gain a qualification and a real-life work experience, hand in hand.
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