Due to Covid restrictions, a lot of the typical college experience was taken away. We had to stay in one classroom for the entire college day and I quickly discovered that it wasn’t for me and I decided to drop out in November of that year.
Once I had left, I had no real plan of what I wanted to do next. I was planning on going back into college the next year and hoped that the experience was different but I also began looking at other paths too. While working at a local supermarket, I had a look on the Welsh Government website and decided to have a look into what apprenticeships were available. I didn’t realise that there were apprenticeships which weren’t on the construction site and I managed to find a job listing for a ‘Business Administration’ role at Aspire 2Be.
In February 2021, I started working at Aspire 2Be and began doing my qualification with Educ8. This helped me develop skills in my work, as well as helping boost my confidence and talk to new people. This apprenticeship has helped me get a qualification while also being hands-on in my work and getting a proper understanding of what it’s like to work in a full time job doing what I love. Now that my friends are leaving college and sixth form, a lot of them are now stuck at a bit of a crossroads and not knowing what they want to do next. A lot of them are now considering taking up apprenticeships instead of going to university as they’ve now seen that they don’t always have to take the usual route of going to college and university to get a qualification, they can also get one from learning and working at the same time!
