GetMyFirstJob Ambassador
Hello, I Am Malaika
Tell us more about your experience
After finishing college, it made me realise that I wasn’t
going to enjoy university. It's something I never really thought about nor did
I ever see myself going. The life time of debt didn't seem appealing to me, and
I also knew a lot of people who still struggled to get a job even after getting
a degree. So I looked at other options like an apprenticeship and I honestly
don’t regret it at all! I’m 21 with no debt and with a great amount of savings
as well as gaining a qualification and knowing I have a job at the end of it, it’s
the greatest feeling!
My advice would be to just do it and
go for an apprenticeship! It’s the new way to success, yes its not easy, you
have a lot more to juggle but the end result is so worth. Do your research to
ensure its suited for yourself and its something you can handle, if so I would
100% recommend doing an apprenticeship. The highlight of my
apprenticeship so far has to be the people I’ve met and the opportunities that
I’ve been given. I love meeting new people and hearing about other careers
paths people have chosen as well as making good friends. This is something that
I’ve been able to do with the early careers colleagues at AQA. The
opportunities that have come my way have been great, from helping to promote
the company, to doing live Q&A’s, as well as being a Mental Health First
Aider (MHFA), not to mention this amazing opportunity of becoming an
apprenticeship ambassador.
My job role is to develop, promote, embed, and monitor a
consistent and robust IT security, information security, business continuity
and data protection management approach reflecting industry best practice to
ensure the highest levels of confidentiality, availability and integrity of AQA
systems and information. So essentially our customers are mainly the employees
of AQA.
The support system given to me by my employer and my
training provider have been so incredible. They have been very
supportive, when I have apprenticeship work due I communicate with my manager
and he ensures that I don’t have a heavy workload to allow me to complete me
apprenticeship work. Or if I need a little bit more time on my essay, I will
let my training provider know of the situation and the move the deadline by a
few days. They are very cooperative, understanding and always available to
answer any questions I may have.
When it came to applying for my role, The application process
was very smooth sailing and transparent. A lot more relaxed than I have ever
experienced. The GetMyFirstJob team made the journey from the start, they
always made sure you were comfortable through every stage. They were always on
top of there communication with you, any questions you may have they would
reply within a few hours so I was always felt at ease.
My future plans for my career is to obviously pass my level 4
apprenticeship in cyber security as a cyber risk analyst which is an 18 month
programme. After that I would want to complete my level 6 degree apprenticeship
and gain that higher qualification. I envision myself completing this
qualification at AQA and then hopefully to continue my career in AQA, as of
right now I have no intention to work for another company, but we will see what
the future holds!