Georgia Widdowson held a role in the operations team at Youthforce, a training provider that specialises in science and is based in Brighton, and went on to do a degree apprenticeship with The Open University
The company recognised the potential in Georgia, who had not had the opportunity to go to university as part of her education. The chartered manager degree apprenticeship with The Open University has been the perfect fit for Georgia’s personal development, building on the lower level apprenticeships she’d already completed.
Since starting the programme, Georgia has been promoted to a management position and has taken a leading role in the company’s finance and strategy.
Georgia explained: “I thought I’d missed the boat of being able to do a degree because I didn’t do it at the time that everyone else was doing it.”
“I was promoted to operations manager around the start of the year. I think that probably relates directly to what I’ve been doing on the degree apprenticeship. Everyone around me is seeing my changes in thinking and thinking at a higher level, and being able to look at things more critically.”
“My practice tutor comes in and we have reviews and he’ll meet with me and my line manager and discuss my progress. I think it’s nice that even though a lot of the delivery is online you do have that one person that comes in and you can have human interaction.”
“I’ve had a fantastic experience. Every member of staff that I’ve spoken to has been really helpful. I think the materials are such high-quality, the online learning platform is just phenomenal so I really would highly recommend The Open University to anyone thinking about it.”
Visit www.open.ac.uk/business/apprenticeships to find out more about The Open University
