From High School Struggles to Career Success: My Unconventional Journey

My journey from student to apprentice to apprentice & beyond starts further back than most. I always had something telling me that I wouldn’t go to university full time. At the time I had no idea what it was, and truth be told I’m not fully sure why now. Whatever it is, I’m glad it did tell me and I’m grateful I listened.

The best place to start is when I was 13 year old. Young Sam Preston, a year 7 at very normal high school, I was also an insecure boy, scared of everyone's opinions, bullied from year 6 through till year 9/10, I cried most days after school, on top of this, I was an immature child, I got detentions most days, messing around in class, talking when I shouldn’t, usual stuff but never anything serious.

Eventually my parents had enough of the detentions and told me join a lunchtime club to keep me off the yards so I could keep out of trouble. So, a few weeks go by and I join the Rowing club with a friend. Alongside this, I was also doing my local paper round in the mornings before schools as a way of earning some cash.

Little did I know at the time that these two things would change my life massively.

A year goes by, I have stopped being naughty in schools, I am still a paper boy that never missed a day regardless of weather or illness, I started to care about school, I have a complete different set of friends at rowing and I have just been told that In one year I will be competing at Dorney Lake in the Junior Sculling Head (A national race, one of the biggest head races in the rowing calendars as a junior).

Safe to say, that year set the tone for the rest of my life. I finally realised how hard I could work.

Fast forward to college, 4 years, 2 national rowing medals, a plethora of wins across 4 rowing seasons, a handful of injuries and to the start of covid, my GCSEs year. We got the word to not come back to school a week after my birthday, I was super excited, I couldn’t wait to play on xbox 24/7 for the foreseeable future.

A couple of months into lockdown I quit rowing and my paper round, mentally I struggled, I couldn’t face the idea of being inside for months, keeping up with all the rowing in my own time, no social interaction, with my dog at the time suffering from cancer and eventually being put down, and my relationship at the time falling to pieces, it felt like this dream world I had built was falling apart and I couldn’t figure out how to keep it together.

My solution to this… get a new job. Fast.

Luckily enough, the nursing home my mother worked for was looking for kitchen staff and so I thought, why not and applied. A couple weeks later and I had the job. It brought me back to life, a new foundation to hold my life steady until Covid ended and so I could then rebuild it. Covid in the nursing home wasn’t easy either though, 10+ hour shifts, constant covid tests and watching the residents struggle with being alone. It was an eye opening experience.

Finally Covid ended, I started A-levels, completed my first year, and when exams came around in year 13 a huge wave of anxiety hit.

 

‘Did I try hard enough?’

‘Am I going to pass?’

‘What if I don’t get into uni?’

‘What if I fail?’

‘What if I let my parents down?’

‘What if I can’t get a job?’

‘What if…?’

‘What if…?’

‘What if…?’

‘What if…?’

‘What if…?’

 

I started to work through scenarios, planning out everything, how do I go from A-B? how do I be better?

I was worrying so much I asked my teachers, is there anything besides university. To my surprise, there was. Apprenticeships! I asked what are they and how do you get them and I was told to figure it out.

Boom. Big blow to the chest.

I went home, did some research and got confused by a new article title…

News article: “Get paid to learn… Degree Apprenticeships”

My head was blown, I went and told my friends and family about apprenticeships. I told my teachers, I told my grandparents, I was excited as I now saw a new path into my career of choice as a civil engineer.

What next? Application time. I had already submitted my university applications so how hard can the apprenticeship ones be. I went through the checklist, CV - “nope”, Psychometric Evaluation - “what on earth”, Phone interview - “ew”, In person interview with industry questions - “what, I'm a student not an engineer”.

Stuck again. Knocked back down. Humbled by the recruitment cycle. “How can I be an engineer if I cant even get through the recruitment cycle?” I thought to myself.

I sit down, ask my Dad (a Chartered Civil Engineer) for help, and thankfully, he teachers me about psychometric evaluations, he walks through every single application I take, prepares me for interviews and grills me so I know I can do it.

I send off 10 or so applications alongside revising for A-levels.

One by one I get responses. 

 

“Unfortunately…” - Rejection Email

“Unfortunately…” - Rejection Email

“Unfortunately…” - Rejection Email

“Unfortunately…” - Rejection Email

“Unfortunately…” - Rejection Email

 

Until finally, I get a phone calling telling me I got an offer for a role at Stantec and shortly after I get an email calling me into another interview by Wood, where I get offered the job in the room.

2 offers out of 10+ applications and 5 months of learning how to be better at every stage of the recruitment cycle and 2 months of waiting to hear back after submissions.

In total it took 7 months from start to finish. It was brutal. I found it draining. I was so proud of myself to have gotten this far.

I accepted the Job offer at Wood (which later merged with WSP) and now here I am, 2 years into my Degree Apprenticeship, loving it, every second, working everyday to one day be able to call myself a Civil Engineer.

A few months into my apprenticeship I was reflecting on my journey and noticed how incredibly difficult it was (and I had 24/7 support from my father for 7 months straight). And so I set up my business, Access Apprentices, as a way to support young people better understand their options post exams and guide them through their journey, whether that be post GCSE or A-levels.

Key Lessons:

•  If one door shuts another one opens.
• You have to keep moving forward.
• Skills make you successful, not grades. That's why my business slogan is, ‘Where Skills Meet Success’.
• Habits set the tone for your life - If it wasn't for the dedication, determination and resilience I learnt from rowing and my paper round I would have given up applying and would have struggled throughout Covid and never tried to sort things out.
• Don’t let anyone change you.
• Define your own set of rules, when I was rowing I promised myself I would always give it my all, I would always try to be better everyday, I would never put a limit on what I can achieve, If it doesn't make sense right now It will one day. 

 

Sam Preston

Managing Director & Founder @ Access Apprentices | Civil Engineering Apprentice | Helping young people become young professionals!

You can find out more and connect with Sam on LinkedIn.