 Alistair had a very definite idea about where he wanted to go in his career and he went to university for a term and then he found aspects of the course he wasn't suitably prepared for so he had to rethink his plans and at that point it was a question of what's available and is employment available and actually he'd like to continue learning and the idea of an apprenticeship came to the fore I was coming towards the end of my year at college and they was asking me where I'm going to go next and they mentioned about apprenticeships and that was something I wanted to start looking into No I didn't know anything much about apprenticeships at all until Chelsea bought a booklet at home with various different information and different apprenticeship courses she could take It gave me the opportunity to go and work at a school that meant a lot to me personally Since Alistair started his apprenticeship he's become much more aware of what the working world is like but suddenly now he's in there in the working world seeing what it's like to interact with colleagues to have frustrations and successes and feedback and praise he's taken advantage of opportunities to do short courses and manufacturer type courses to learn more than he needs to do with his apprenticeship and I think all that's really benefited him tremendously he's got a very strong sense now of where his career could go and what he wants to do next It's already helped me gain the confidence of getting up in the mornings and having some sort of structure towards my day it's given me an understanding and knowledge of the real world and growing up and that actually I'm not a child anymore I am growing up and I need to see what work is like It gave me the opportunity to go into work and to get my training through working This I believe is given her career for the rest of her life I would definitely recommend other parents look into apprenticeships to just see their children grow with the sort of safety of learning but also becoming more mature I think it's the best of the middle ground they're out there in the big wide world but they've got that safety net of the people supporting them through training She's definitely more confident her timekeeping is amazing now her self-esteem is just she's got a confident and the children when she works absolutely adore her I think you feel quite immature still there's a lot of growing up that you need to do and I felt like I needed to do this for myself because at the end of the day when I grew up the only person I've truly got to rely on is myself and I think if I didn't take the apprenticeship I wouldn't be where I am now To look around I think things have changed in the last few years I think the economic situation, the cost of higher education and the fact that I think the apprenticeship route is there offering alternative ways of learning and acquiring skills but being more vocationally related it's just too good an opportunity to ignore If you're considering starting an apprenticeship I think you should talk to your teachers people that you feel comfortable to talk to if you're concerned about it research about it, look online, look through the booklet see what information is on there to help you to make your decision getting parents on board and see it as a positive talk to them about it and see what they think and see if they believe that's the right thing for you to do and help them look into it as well because they'll be concerned I'm sure I agree From the age of 16 you could choose to be an apprentice at any age as long as you don't have a degree