TALES FROM THE ROKE TEAM National Apprenticeship Week: Emily
15th March 2024
ROKE MEETS Emily
It’s National Apprenticeship Week! To celebrate we’ve interviewed some of our fantastic Rokies on our Apprenticeship Scheme. Today it’s Emily, a Technical Apprentice in our Futures team. She chatted to us about her careers goals and how Roke is supporting them, and juggling university and full time work.
What were your career plans before joining Roke?
My main goal was to find an apprenticeship that would let me combine theoretical knowledge with real-world applications. I’d loved programming and problem solving for a long time and knew that I wanted a career that would allow me to expand my knowledge even more. As I had no experience working in this industry, it was important to me to be able to try a range of different areas to find what best suited me
Why Roke?
The parts of Roke that attracted me the most were the opportunities and the great work environment. I was excited at the chance to contribute to exciting projects whilst also learning from experts in the industry at the same time. Since working here, I’ve always felt like my work is valued even when working on something completely new.
Tell us about your degree apprenticeship so far
So far, I’ve been able to work on several projects that have all been very different from each other. From this I have also gained a business perspective to the work I am doing and an understanding for how technology can be used to benefit people’s day to day lives.I’ve been able to pick up many skills from work and university. Things like Gitlab and testing were new to me when I started but now, they are just part of my day-to-day life. I have also been able to work more with programming languages like Python that I was already familiar with.
What is the best thing about working for Roke?
The best part about Roke for me is the chance to not only expand my own knowledge but to also share what I do know with the next generation and show them how great STEM can be. It’s important to me to have more women working in STEM so it’s great to be able to change the stereotypes many people have about the sort of people that work in technology.
Where would you like to take your career here?
My aim now is to keep working and gaining experience around artificial intelligence and machine learning as they’re my main areas of interest as the moment. Technology is constantly changing so I want to keep my options open to anything. As long as I can keep finding roles with exciting work to do then I think I’ll be happy.
Do you feel supported in your role?
Yes, there are plenty of people that I can talk through any issues with if I need to. I have weekly meetings to talk through how my week has been and to make sure that I’m aware of everything going on. I can also reach anyone to ask a question for work or university whenever I need to.