My unique apprenticeship and me

Cam Wood is 25 years old, from Herefordshire and is a former member of our Youth Advisory Group. Cam has Cerebral Palsy and Hydrocephalus - he uses a wheelchair in all aspects of his daily life. Here, he tells CareerMap about his unique apprenticeship experience.

I hadn’t really considered completing an apprenticeship until the Christmas of 2019 when I was offered my dream apprenticeship with the communications team at my local authority. 

I have struggled to stay in employment because of my disability so I saw an apprenticeship as the ideal way to be in employment whilst completing a qualification. 

I would say that my apprenticeship was unique because for the first 21 days (3 weeks) of my programme I was based in the office then we moved to remote working from home due to the coronavirus pandemic. I absolutely loved working from home because it gave me the opportunity to complete coursework and prepare for exams in my own space.

I learnt so much about the world of business administration and communications during my 12-month course. 

I think the one thing that stood out to me about my apprenticeship was completing my level 2 ICT exam in just 4 days. 

I also decided to deliver a couple of presentations to my team about my apprenticeship and how it was going. 

As part of my studies, I had to complete several different units and they included Equality & Diversity in the workplace which was my favourite unit. 

I accept that Equality and Diversity in the workplace is not the most interesting of units but for me it is because I love to explore the ins and outs of this subject. 

There is so much that I loved about apprenticeship, and I am gutted that I am not able to write about all of it in this piece. 

Since I completed this apprenticeship in May 2021 from home, I have become a massive advocate for apprenticeships because they give people like myself the opportunity to feel secure whilst in employment. 

In the last 100 words of this article, I wanted to leave you with this message: 

If you know that university is not the route for you post 16 then I would strongly recommend looking into doing an apprenticeship or internship because they can change lives and open up so many opportunities for.