• Name

  Mia
  

  January 2023 Ambassador of the Month

  
  

• Job Title and Employer

  Chartered Manager Degree Apprentice

• Employer

  Parker Meggitt

• Provider

  Aston University

• Levels

  Level 6 (Higher) Apprenticeship

• Training Provider and Qualification

  Aston University and Chartered Management Institute, Chartered Manager Degree Apprenticeship

• Occupations

  Managerial

• Apprenticeship Start Date

  Sep 2022

• Skills Gained

  Responsibility Efficiency Confidence Time Management Organisation

• What are your interests outside of work?

  I enjoy spending my time going to new cities and restaurants with my friends and family. I'm a very sociable person and have a strong and supportive network of friends, we like to go shopping together, going out and chilling round each other's houses. Another hobby of mine is keeping fit, I've always been involved in sports such as gymnastic and dancing. But recently I've enjoyed going to the gym and trying new classes. I also love to walk my dog!

GetMyFirstJob Ambassador

Hello, I Am Mia

January 2023 Ambassador of the Month

Tell us more about your experience

University just isn't for everyone!

I've always known that I work best when I apply my knowledge to a practical task, so an apprenticeship seemed like the perfect route to start my career. By choosing a degree apprenticeship it really gives the best of both worlds. I'm a part time university student which means I participate in online webinars, on campus days and online exercises which I then apply my learning to a real-life situation in the workplace. By seeing the practices I've been learning about being put into action it really gives the most effective training and experience

Keep your options open. Find an area your interest in and can see yourself completing but don't be frightened to apply for job roles which slightly differ. You'll gain so much more experience in the application process then you think you will. Even by attending assessment centres, completing online or in person interviews you'll gain confidence within yourself and the process. Also, ask teachers or mentors to help in these stages as they may not be pushing apprenticeships as much as university but, in my experience, were happy to help and even learned things about apprenticeships they didn't know which further helped more people. Once you get to the stage when picking your apprenticeship, check a company's values and culture resonates with your own as you'll be the one working there.

As only recently starting my apprenticeship, I have a clear plan for my apprenticeship period. I am doing rotating placements of a 6-12 months in multiple areas which matches with my uni course at the time. Some of my placements include Finance, Marketing, more commercial based roles and then customer-based roles. My Apprenticeship is also adaptive to where I want to take myself, so if I want to do a shorter or longer placement in a specific area I can. This freedom gives me the opportunity to further consolidate an area which I'm more interested in or to give more time when struggling. Already, I have had the opportunity to attend great global conferences such as MRO Europe where I proudly represented Parker Meggitt alongside very senior colleagues. This gave me an incredible networking opportunity and the ambition to attend more events like this. I have also joined a "Developing Women in the workplace" group where I travelled to London to attend a conference with inspirational talks and breakout groups whereas as a collective we speak about issues in the workplace and what improvements we could make. All these opportunities have made me feel so motivated as I feel like the initial support and trust is only going to get better! I also have an early careers team which I use as my mentor type person who I could go to with any issues in general. I also have a very supportive Line manager who will stay the same throughout my whole apprenticeship, I'd go to him about issues with my placement, progression and general concerns. I'm also very lucky with the fact I started my apprenticeship with another employee whose going on the same journey and route as me. This relationship acts as a more informal day -to - day support network as were both completing the same Uni courses and similar placements.

A highlight of my apprenticeship so far would be when we had an initial week of networking and creating relationships within our apprenticeship cohort. We took part in lots of workshops, trust activities and team building games which created solid relationships which I know I'll carry through my whole journey. These initial relationships meant a daunting task of joining a well-established, huge company slightly easier as we knew some friendly faces even before starting the apprenticeship.

My biggest challenge so far would be getting to terms with a real life business environment. The professionalism is very different to any school career or other jobs I've had so I do think that was always going to be a challenge . As Iwas expecting this challenge, I've gone into it with an open mind and adapted very well.