3rd Year Apprentice Award 2019 - Max Whitmore

We asked Max a few questions about his Apprenticeship and winning this award...

1) What is your Apprenticeship?

My apprenticeship is a Software Developer apprenticeship.

2) Can you describe some benefits of undertaking Apprenticeship based training?

I have found that the benefits of undertaking apprenticeship based training include being able to learn on the job as well as gain a relevant qualification at the same time.  The skills that I have learned from my training have tied in nicely to my job and has helped me to work better. When I first started, I found that by shadowing colleagues I would learn a lot and this really helped me to build a solid understanding of the software that I work on and what the best practices are for developing a system. More recently I have had the chance to share my knowledge that I have learned over the last few years with new team members and I have found that by teaching others is a great way to learn.

3) What was your reaction to winning your award?

I basically looked around confused about how I had won it because I really didn’t expect to, but I was very very pleased!

4) What would you recommend to anyone else considering an Apprenticeship/taking on an apprentice?

Absolutely! I would definitely recommend an apprenticeship to others because the skills that you learn on through your training and on the job are skills that you will use for the rest of your working life. I would particularly recommend a Software Develop apprenticeship because it allows you to get stuck in and learn a system and write code pretty much straight away. I also think that by “doing” is the best way to learn when programming and an apprenticeship really enables you to do just that.