Tom: The next chapter
I am currently CAD apprentice looking to grow and develop my career in Engineering. This blog series aims to take you through my journey by sharing my experiences at HARTING.
At college, I am currently focussing on my practical assessments which involves me demonstrating my competencies on various machines, both at college and work. This helps me to improve and adapt my skills, as the environments and machines vary so it can be a challege. At the moment, I'm learning how to use milling machine and my confidence is definitely starting to grow.
I aim to learn more about CAD and improve my skills before completing assessments based on it. I look forward to using this as I use CAD regularly at work and would like to become more proficient at it by completing drawings without any assistance from our CAD technician, Janita.
One of my main goals for 2017 is improving my product knowledge on our DIN, D-Sub and electronic product ranges. I feel that I am now quite familiar with our Han product range but I want to learn more about the products that I don't work with as much so I have a well-rounded knowledge and can provide better assistance.
After two years of working towards it, I will finish college and receive my VRQ level 3 Diploma in Engineering Technology and this will be a real achievement. I will continue to work towards my NVQ Extended Diploma in Engineering Technical Support Level 3, rather than doing this at college I will do this in the office with the support of my Manager and my colleagues. My NVQ entails using Milling machines, Centre Lathes and computers with CAD software at work and then creating job write ups to prove my level of competency. This allows me to gain a level of understanding of the processes involved in producing our products which helps me with my technical support role. I’m looking forward to being in the office full-time and continuing my learning but I will also miss my days at college and the practical learning.
I’m really excited to see what this year brings and I’ll make sure to update you all along the way!
