Frazer Clarke joined us in September 2019 as a Level 3 Apprentice after completing his GCSE Studies at Ermysteds Grammar School and now works as an apprentice within our Structural Engineering department.
After deciding that a career in structural engineering was for him, Frazer approached PWA to discuss opportunities to join our structural department. Having previously undertaken a work experience placement with an engineering firm, he had no doubt that he would go on to pursue a career in engineering post 16.
After impressing us with his enthusiasm during the interview stages Frazer was offered an apprenticeship and will begin his BTEC Level 3 in Construction at LCB in September whilst working with us full time. Frazer has made a great impression in his first 6 months at PWA and has integrated into the company very well. He has grasped structural engineering excellently and is already capable of designing in steel, concrete timber and masonry.
Frazer is now designing and drafting full schemes from the foundations to the superstructure and has become a valued member of the team. Don’t just take our word for it, see what Frazer has to say about his Apprenticeship Journey so far:
“I am currently an apprentice at Paul Waite Associates Ltd. I left school at 16 after completing my GCSEs, I knew the career path I wanted to take early on after completing a week of work experience in year 10.
Paul Waite Associates offered a brilliant opportunity to me for many reasons. They’re a local company with a great reputation and are fully supportive of the apprenticeship schemes, they ensure all apprentices are involved with projects and even give them their own projects to manage under the supervision of experienced engineers once they have gained experience of the different things that may be involved.
As part of national apprentice week at Paul Waite Associates we got asked to speak about things we are proud of since starting our apprenticeships here. There are many things that I am proud of since starting my apprenticeship all of which are different things. The first thing I am proud of since joining was a local site where they were building 10 units, I am mainly proud of this because it was my first full project where I was thrown in at the deep end from the start and had to try figure out the problems on my own before seeking help from a more senior engineer.
As with most projects things change so this meant I had to have discussions with architects on how the changes may affect things which helped my understanding of the affects of different aspects on the building, these discussions also helped build a relationship with the architects for future jobs. The next thing I am proud of is a smaller project and it isn’t because of the work involved but instead the results after completion of the project. We received this project from a building company but their was an architect company also very involved.
After completion of the work I sent it all to the architects and the builders this then lead to the architects wanting me to do more work for them because of the quality of work and the thoroughness of what I had gone into. The final thing I am proud of is a site visit I went to, I had previously been to a similar site the week before where me and a senior engineer had to measure up a mezzanine to check it’s capacity as they wanted to change what was on it.
After this site visit I had gained knowledge of what was involved in a mezzanine check and what information was needed so when it came to going to this site visit with another senior engineer I could use my initiative to have more of an involvement with the visit and help more to collect the relevant information required. ‘’
- Frazer Clarke