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Instrumentation apprentice

Da.kid

Just looking for a bit of advice. I have an interview upcoming with a calibration company for an intrustmentation apprenticeship. I have a background in engineering and polymers and was wondering how hectic the apprenticeship would be? I Have checked the syllabus but was hoping to get some feed back from some instrumentation techs on how they found it and potential in the career?

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2011

Da.kid wrote: »

Just looking for a bit of advice. I have an interview upcoming with a calibration company for an intrustmentation apprenticeship.

I was employed as an instrumentation technician for several years for a pharmaceutical company in Ireland and in the petrochemical industry abroad in the nineties and noughties.

I have a background in engineering

Doing what exactly?

was wondering how hectic the apprenticeship would be?

What can I tell you? It is a 4 year apprenticeship that would be more interesting that most other apprenticeships (in my opinion). The more you apply yourself the more you get out of it.

Although some describe the maths as "complicated" in reality it doesn't go beyond pass leaving cert level. So if you can do a little algebra and basic trigonometry it shouldn't present much of a problem to you.
If you can't manage this, don't worry. They start from a very basic level and build up slowly. Even someone very weak at maths that puts some effort in will cope IMHO.

I Have checked the syllabus but was hoping to get some feed back from some instrumentation techs on how they found it and potential in the career?

I found the most interesting aspects were related to commissioning, start up and fault finding. I carried out plenty of calibrations on many different instruments that measured flow, level, weight, temperature, rpm, pH etc... Initially I enjoyed learning this, but once I had carried out the same calibrations on the same set of instruments several times it became very tedious. Although I changed career a long time ago the experience working as an instrument technician has been invaluable.

Good luck in the interview.

Da.kid

I have a higher cert in polymer technology which was heavily engineering based. Would know a lot of material science, physics and the maths I would have done would be statistics, trigonometry and algebra mainly.

I have an aptitude test coming up for the apprenticeship too. Would you have any idea what kind of test these would be? (eg. mechanical reasoning etc?)

You moved away from the occupation, did you go on to upskill into engineering? Or was it a completely new career?

Thank you so much for the detailed and informative response. I have found it hard to find anyone who has completed the apprenticeship.

2011

Da.kid wrote: »

I have a higher cert in polymer technology which was heavily engineering based. Would know a lot of material science, physics and the maths I would have done would be statistics, trigonometry and algebra mainly.

I'm sure this would help.

I have an aptitude test coming up for the apprenticeship too. Would you have any idea what kind of test these would be? (eg. mechanical reasoning etc?)

Not a clue! If you PM me a number I will ring you and tell you a bit about the work which may help in an interview.

You moved away from the occupation, did you go on to upskill into engineering? Or was it a completely new career?

Went back to study, got a degree.
I now work for a large consultancy in as a design lead.

Thank you so much for the detailed and informative response. I have found it hard to find anyone who has completed the apprenticeship.

Just to be clear, I served my time as an electrician. I was then trained (much of the training was in-house) as an instrument technician. I have worked with many instrument technicians and apprentice instrument techs for the last 15 years (still do).