Sonya Chapman: “My name is Sonya Chapman and I work at the Central Lasers Facility. I started off as a customer services assistant. I actually started to feel like it wasn't much of a challenge after a while. I think with customer services and with places like that, there’s only so much you can push yourself. There’s only so much you can do. It’s very limited.
About three years ago, I decided to take on this role as a technician, on the job training. I went back to college and did a Btech National Certificate in Applied Science, which was great fun.
Chris Pulker: “I started off life wanting to be a car mechanic but after working for two weeks as a car mechanic, I realised I needed something a bit more stimulating. This is a dewer of liquid nitrogen and we're going to do our experiment with this”.
Darren: “I started off straight from school. I have a four and a half year apprenticeship in tool- making. Then I moved into superconductive magnets and then I moved into the workshops here.
Steve Cox: “I thought: ‘what can I do where I’m earning money?’”. I left school at sixteen and started my apprenticeship. That took me three years. From then on, I’ve worked in ISIS doing electronics engineering. I really like the environment and the challenge that comes with it”.
Martyn Bull: “Technicians, here at ISIS, started from all sorts of different routes. Some of them came straight from school and trained to be apprentices. Others came here and then they have done college training, so that they can get qualifications: Btech, HMD, even degree-level courses”.
Kate Lancaster: “Not everybody wants to be a scientist, nut you can work in science technology and engineering without having to have a PhD, without having to do all that kind of stuff. It’s exemplary here- the apprenticeship scheme and it’s to its testament that the people who do it stay.
STFC - The training of technicians v3 from Gatsby Charitable Foundation on Vimeo.
