When I think back to the start of my apprenticeship at NetSupport, I realise just how much I have learnt over the past 10 months. I started my apprenticeship with a good understanding in some areas of marketing and social media, as I had completed work experience and held a short-term position in this area before, but my knowledge then pales in comparison to what I know now. I still have so much more to learn but my apprenticeship has already taught me so much.
In my role in NetSupport’s Marketing team I have worked on a large variety of different projects and tasks and I’ve created pieces of design work I never imagined I would create. Some of the areas I have covered in my work so far include: graphic design (for both web and print), animation, email marketing, social media marketing and more.
One of the best things about my role is that it changes on a daily basis. Every day, I get to work on different projects whether that be a promotional email signature, an offer poster or an animated map for an exhibition. I love the variety in my role and because of this I’ve been able to pick up a whole host of new skills and use creative software that I had never used before my apprenticeship.
One of my favourite projects so far was an animation project where I created a NetSupport Manager product update video for our YouTube channel. I liked working on this project because I was given freedom to create the video based on a framework that I developed with another team member. I found the idea of the task daunting at first as the software I used (Adobe After Effects) was completely unknown to me – I’d never even opened it before! Now I have a basic knowledge of the software and animation in general and feel confident in my skills to create a piece of work when asked to do so.
In terms of studying, I have done a large proportion of my college work so far at home in order to focus on my work at NetSupport during the working week but, when I need to complete my assignments at work, I try to allocate a set number of hours in which to complete them. This allows me to keep a good balance and not let one aspect of my apprenticeship affect the other.
Chloe Bray, NetSupport Marketing Apprentice