Julia’s Blog

Hi, I’m Julia, 18 years old and I come from Germany. I do my apprenticeship in a German industrial company as an industrial clerk. In Germany the apprenticeship is dual, this means I have to go through all commercial departments in the company to learn the skills of the employees there. But also I have to go to school for one day a week. In my class at school are only pupils who have the same apprenticeship as me and we all started on the same day in different companies. The apprenticeship lasts three years.

The ‘Erasmus‘ Organization allows me to do an internship for four weeks abroad. This way I get the chance to improve my English skills and find out more about the British way of life & work.

In our first week of our stay we (a group of ten people from Germany) had English lessons and stayed at a hostel in Birmingham. After this week everybody went to a host family and got a company to work with. In the evenings we went to pubs or restaurants and experienced the British lifestyle. And at the weekends we visited London which is an amazing city. There we saw some sights like the London Eye where you can have a breathtaking view over the city as well we walked over the London bridge and visited the biggest shopping centre I’ve ever seen, called Harrods. More over we went to the Think Tank that is a Science Museum in Birmingham, which is also very interesting but unfortunately very crowded when we went there. Another fantastic visit was the trip to Cadbury world, but only if you love chocolate. It’s a factory where you can see how chocolate is made and there’s a 4D-Cinema that is very funny. It is all very exciting here and also the food is great but everything is completely different to Germany.

My time at Creative Alliance, which was the company I got, was really great and interesting. I got to know some details about the school system in Britain or what it means doing an apprenticeship here, that is very different to Germany. Creative Alliance supports the people who do a creative apprenticeship like Digital Marketing, Design, Technical Theatre or Community Arts in and around Birmingham. They help the learners training for their functional skills (ICT, English, Maths) and lead inductions for new learners to support them with their apprenticeships. The employees of Creative Alliance accompany the trainees the whole time during their apprenticeships and help them if necessary.

It was a fantastic time in England and I can only recommend it!