Approaching the end of my degree apprenticeship (retrospective and thoughts about the future)

by James Dolan, Final Year Apprentice, EPIX and Manchester Metropolitan University.

James is pictured (centre) with Zahir, EPIX’s first degree apprentice who has now graduated, and Jess, who is in year three.

As I am now thoroughly entrenched in the fourth and final year of my degree apprenticeship I thought it would be interesting to look back on the experience and how it has shaped me as an individual.

When I started at EPIX I had been a hobby programmer for many years but I had no experience with the core skills that are required in industry. Some standouts include programming in a team, code review and working with enterprise scale systems. During my employment I have been given extensive opportunities to develop these abilities allowing me to increase my strength not only as a solo developer but as a team player as well.

My academic studies with Manchester Metropolitan University have been a constant support not only academically but also socially; providing me with a taste of the university life enjoyed by a lot of people my age. The days I have spent at uni have consolidated my knowledge in topics such as web development, project management and computer fundamentals whilst also providing me with the opportunity to make strong friendships I can see lasting a lifetime.

Looking back on the last three and half years I can say I definitely made the right choice deciding to do a degree apprenticeship – I can’t recommend this career path enough to anyone who feels they wouldn’t get much out of full time study. I feel like I have made brilliant progress on my journey to become an accomplished software engineer.