Georgie McGregor is currently doing her Apprenticeship at Chesterfield College within the Learning Resources and LEAP teams. She is completing her Level 3 Business Admin apprenticeship and in doing so, hoping to go into a full-time role as one of the support team.
As part of National Apprenticeship Week, we spoke to Georgie about her apprenticeship, how it’s supporting her growth and how she believes the qualification will help her #buildthefuture!
“The main thing I like about working in college is the support you can get because you are here. You have support from everyone whether that be your manager or just your colleagues. To be quite honest it doesn’t just have to be your colleagues, there have been many times where I’ll just run down to reception and ask for help. That’s probably the best thing for me, being able to ask for help from anyone I need to and having that support.”
“I enjoy student interactions and helping myself grow. The job includes working with students who are not far off my age and some older than me, it has been a challenge to be able to meet boundaries and put them in place and be able to be a bit more authoritative. It’s quite difficult as I’m quite young.
I have been supported by the LEAPSs, I can go to anyone, especially Emma and just say I’m struggling with tackling this, how would I do that? I have no problem going and asking for that support. In terms of applying that to my learning, that’s another easy thing for me to do as I’m in the library every day, working with lots of different students from all different age groups. It’s given me a lot of confidence and I can see the growth.”
“I didn’t choose the apprenticeship, it sort of found me. I went on the college website to look at the job vacancies. I always knew I wanted to work in an area to do with support, I did beauty therapy and that’s an area of support that isn’t typically viewed that way.
I saw that the LEAP mentors had a vacancy so I decided to apply, I got my interview and then I got a phone call saying all though you don’t meet every requirement we really want you to be part of our team. They had a Business Admin Apprenticeship open and offered it to me. It wasn’t something I wanted as I’d been here a long time, I wanted to move into work but I guess that’s the benefit of an apprenticeship, I’m still learning but I’m getting the benefit of a paid job. It was a no brainer for me, I wanted to get that experience to be a LEAP mentor and this is the easiest way for me to do it. It’s the best opportunity for me to get where I want to be.”
“I would definitely recommend an apprenticeship because it gives you an insight into the big wide world and into adult life. Especially for school leavers, I think it can be quite daunting because you are made to choose what you want to do at such as young age and you don’t really know what you want to do. You are getting paid for it, which is a benefit but it’s not the best thing about it, It is that you are still learning and you can’t go wrong in educating yourself in anything.”
“you are going to exceed your own expectations whilst you are in education”
“There’s no official class you go to, it’s full-time work and then you need to find that 7 hours to get your studying done. Today, for example, would be my learning apprenticeship time, I have to cater that around everything I’m doing and adhere to that. As well as that I do have regular phone calls with my tutor and they go through everything with you. You do get that 1:1 and talk through your progress, what you need to work on, your strengths and your weaknesses.”
“I think it’s important to who I am today that I’ve done both courses and apprenticeships as part of my career journey. My Performing Arts course gave me the confidence I need to do something like this. My Beauty Therapy course boosted my confidence, taught me time management, that I liked working on my own and taught me what I need to learn and a different way of learning. It also opened me up to a lot of opportunities, if it wasn’t for my beauty therapy course I wouldn’t have done this.
It’s all been a big journey to get where I need to be, although I’ve gone back to education, I don’t think there are any negatives to that. I’ve got all the time in the world to choose what I want to do.”
If you would like to find out more about National Apprenticeship Week and the opportunities available please read our article or come along to our event to meet the team and find out how to #buildyourfuture.