An Apprentice's Journey with Weston College
Hi I'm Emma, a Digital Marketing Apprentice at Weston College.
After finishing my A Levels, I didn’t know what to do with my career. I knew university wasn’t the route I wanted, but I was also afraid of being 20 years old and doing an apprenticeship. I saw an apprenticeship as something for school leavers, and I didn’t realise the opportunities it would present me.
I wanted to get my foot in the door with a local employer, and start a job where I could showcase my creativity, and express my passion for social media. An apprenticeship gave me just that, and was the perfect route to kick start my future career in marketing. I quickly learned that the majority of other apprentices at Weston College were the same age as me – in fact, there are several people older than me studying an apprenticeship in order to upskill.
I now laugh at the fact that I got the role of an apprentice so wrong - instead of doing the basic jobs I was expecting, I am treated the same as any other member of the team. I am given so many opportunities to fully understand what digital marketing is and why it is so beneficial to the organisation. The team are incredibly supportive, and I know that I can approach anyone with a question and not only will they help me with the situation, but it will also benefit my qualification.
I have grown in confidence so much since working at Weston College, from something simple like picking up the phone to ask someone a question, to communicating with senior staff and employers during events.
What I love most about my job is that no two days are the same. Whether I am working on adding content to one of the websites, editing a video, or covering an event on social media; my role allows me explore my creativity in the best way imaginable. My proudest moment whilst working at Weston College was creating and managing a digital campaign by myself for the first time – and seeing the impact it had on student recruitment. This is something I didn’t believe I would be able to do when I first started my apprenticeship.
Weston College has a brilliant staff mentoring program which helped me to settle in straight away. As a previous Weston College student I thought I knew most things about the college, but I was definitely wrong. I meet my mentor regularly for coffee, which really helps with my development.
I’ve recently become part of a new initiative called the ‘Inspiring Future Talent’ programme, which welcomes all current internal apprentices working at the college, and allows apprentices from across the organisation to discuss issues or struggles that come with being an apprentice. We are given the opportunity to talk about any topics that we feel will help to support us through our time at Weston College, and it’s a great opportunity to get to know others. Being inspired by the help I received from my mentor, I hope to help other people, especially apprentices into settling into the college in the future.
I am loving my time as an apprentice, and look forward to continuing my development at Weston College.
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