From Apprentice to Oxford: Zeynel's Journey Navigating Career Choices, Challenges, and Growth

Over 6 years ago I withdrew from all my university offers on UCAS to pursue a degree apprenticeship in FinTech. Now, I have graduated from my apprenticeship, with over half a decade of experience in the industry, and a master’s at Oxford underway. Looking back at the leap of faith I took, I’m compelled to share my experiences with others. Back then, I didn’t know anyone doing an apprenticeship, and it honestly felt like a risky choice. I’d applied almost as a backup, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. I gave up my UCL offer for Maths & Economics to jump into a new world - a tech apprenticeship.

The first six months were the toughest. Imagine being 18, suddenly thrust into the working world, and spending three hours commuting daily while seeing friends enjoying university life. I couldn’t help but feel envious. I felt isolated and my days blurred into each other with early mornings, long commutes, and hours behind a desk. It wasn’t what I’d imagined my university experience would be like when I had such high hopes for university like meeting new people, joining societies, and exploring many different passion areas. Even though I had supportive mentors at work that guided me through my job, I wondered if the grass was greener on the other side. It was common to feel trapped and regretful due to deciding on a set job very early on in life without exploring different opportunities and internships through university. Which is something I'm confident the up-and-coming young professionals won't lack thanks to their insight events and supportive communities.

Things started to shift after a few months when I became accustomed to work. I completed some projects successfully, and gradually, I was given more responsibility and variety in my tasks which exposed me to even more areas of the business. Showing the desire to learn and try new things is one of the most important pieces of advice I can give. Even if you're not passionate about that area yet, experimenting can help you find areas of talent/interest, benefits your personal development, and shows your team that you’re dedicated. Some of the most pivotal moments I’ve had in my career were expressing interest in new paths when I felt like my job was starting to stagnate or I stopped learning. Raising issues or concerns as early as I could allowed me to change roles and also work on various projects. This motivated me to keep learning but also importantly, to be happy with my job as it was common for feelings of doubt and regret about my chosen path to creep up occasionally.  Throughout my time, I’ve had client facing duties such as being a consultant, business analyst, even a short stint of managing a project (which helped me realise that project management was not for me!) and then software development which I currently work in.

By my final year, everything was piling up with demanding projects at work, challenging university modules, a massive final year project, and an apprenticeship endpoint assessment. The Covid pandemic didn’t help, it was a difficult time for everyone involved. Nearly half of our apprenticeship was during the pandemic and everyone was slowly recovering from the impacts of lockdown. When people talk about the difficulty of balancing university and work, this is when it really kicked in… it was nothing like the first few years and the time management and effort I put into my degree became essential. After the final hurdle, I graduated, and with the 4 years of experience I gained I had learnt a ton of useful skills and the benefits of doing an apprenticeship just started to become more apparent and I moved on to be a software developer because I wanted to move to a more technical role to build upon my degree and pursue that as my career. I started small on big established projects and today I have much bigger responsibilities and leading teams in smaller and newer projects. One thing I learnt for the future is that, if you want to pursue a certain career, you should always reach out to people within your organisation first to try and make that a reality. I wish I had moved into software development sooner as I was much more engaged and challenged in that role.

However I had always wanted to pursue further study. Although I had a great start by having years of work experience, I still had knowledge gaps. Which is a downside I felt from the apprenticeship. The lack of optional modules to explore specialised topics and the difference in learning compared to a conventional university degree made it difficult because soon I realised that most computer science master's degrees I wanted to apply to required some level of undergraduate level maths which wasn’t included at all in my apprenticeship. So I took it upon myself to take additional part-time maths qualifications to meet some university requirements and eventually, I got into the Software Engineering programme at Oxford. Would it have been easier and less effort if I had studied a conventional BSc degree that encompassed all the prerequisites? Or did the fact that I took it upon myself to gain extra qualifications support my application? Perhaps. The bottom line here is that there can be many paths towards your goals with no concrete road to follow. Year by year, I see apprenticeships improving in their offerings and university degrees adapting. Some industries require lots of further study for research style roles, on the other hand, many jobs care much more about the years of experience you built up during your apprenticeship. Both paths still share a plethora of opportunities so as long as you have the motivation and desire, there are always opportunities to fill the gaps where needed if you feel like you are missing anything by following either route. 

But knowing how hard it can be without a network of mentors and like-minded professionals to navigate those early years and answer questions, I wanted to make sure other students had the support I sometimes lacked. Mentoring students from GCSE level up to the first year of university became my way of giving back. This gave me a broad spectrum of the aspirations and dreams of young adults aged 15-20 allowing me to share my experiences through various careers fairs. I found that many of the students were also part of other wider groups and were attending Young Professionals events with industry leading organisations and student focused events to build their connections and support each other. This enabled me to reach out to a wider audience of students to support them in bridging the gap between their dreams and reality. Some of the advice I can give is to ensure you have a clean and professional CV that you can always refer back to in interviews to share your experience and showcase your passion. Research both the role and the company you are applying for and think about why you would be suitable for it, if you think you would enjoy it, and most importantly, not give up after a single bad assessment or interview. Each assessment and interview will teach you things to perform better in future situations like being more prepared with behavioural questions, more confident, and being a better storyteller to showcase your passion and your projects.

If there’s one thing I’ve learnt, it’s that there are many paths to success and happiness. As a young adult sometimes we feel like it may be the end of the world if we miss a grade, miss a university offer, or get rejected from an apprenticeship. I sure did. But building connections, friends, and mentors, and exposing yourself to many different insight events along the way will always help you even after what you decide to do for your post-18 option. As long as you are happy with your choice, it is what you make of it and everyone will have a different journey. Would I recommend apprenticeships to young professionals? Yes, as long as you’ve done your research on it and realise both its benefits and drawbacks. Would I personally do one again if I could go back in time? Probably not, and where would I be if I hadn’t decided to try my luck on a single apprenticeship application many years ago? I guess we’ll never know.