my name is John Byrne I'm recently
completed my electrical apprenticeship
I've been taken on as an electrical technician at Daresbury Laboratory. I mean every day is different
I could be working on one job for a week,
two weeks. So that could be the Dune
project that we've been working on recently
but next week it could be phase two of
CLARA this machine here behind me. Some of
the highlights of my time here at Daresbury
would be, I went on a three-week work
placement to European Spallation Source [ESS]
in Sweden. so we do a lot of work for the ESS
here on site but it was a good opportunity to
see how the work we do here, how that impacts the bigger project onsite in Lund.
Another one of the highlights of my time here is I did recently win the Apprentice of the Year Award.
for the last year of my apprenticeship.
That was a really nice way of receiving
recognition for the work i've done on my apprenticeship. We do get some time to do various
outreach activities and team-building
things.
So a couple of years ago we went to a place called Skern Lodge, which was a kind of outward bound
team-building activities week
which was really enjoyable. From a young
age I've always been interested in
engineering, technology subjects. I think
it was instilled in me by a lot of
family members being interested in the
same sort of things. So, high school I always favoured the
science and technology subjects because
you've got the background academic side
of the subject. But also you saw how it was applied in the real-life and hands-on
subjects. I then realised that Daresbury Laboratory were doing an apprenticeship program,
where I furthered the education side of it
through a HNC [Higher National Certificate] and HND [Higher National Diploma]
but alongside gaining on-the-job
experience, earning while I was learning.
Up until this day where I've been taken on as an electrical technician, in technology.
But, I've also taken the opportunity to
further my knowledge by taking an upskilling
apprenticeship through a part-time degree course to achieve my BEng [Bachelor of Engineering]
in Electrical Engineering.
