Apprenticeship was a ‘Turing-point’ for Ramez and his family

02 Mar 2015

The University has launched its 2015 apprenticeship campaign to encourage managers across the organisation to consider hiring apprentices when suitable vacancies arise; it has set a target of at least 100 apprentices in post by the end of the year. Here, we talk to Ramez, the second of our featured apprentices:

Ramez Karim is an apprentice in the School of Maths – where the famous Alan Turing was based – and works within the student admissions team. The 23-year-old, from Sheffield, moved to Manchester after securing his job with the University and ended up convincing his whole family to relocate to the city.

“I told my parents what a nice city Manchester was – I’d studied at MMU so knew the place well – and so they decided to get jobs here and now we all live in Victoria Park in south Manchester, my two sisters too. My dad’s an electrical engineer and my mum’s a teacher; one of my sisters is in college and the other is in school.”

Ramez, a former pupil of Firth Barn High School in Sheffield, studied for a foundation year in engineering at Manchester Metropolitan University, in the footsteps of his father, but decided it wasn’t for him.

“Dad wasn’t happy about me changing career from engineering at first – he wanted me to follow in his footsteps – but when he and mum heard I was working at The University of Manchester they were really pleased; it’s such a prestigious university to work for.

“I wanted to work with potential students, so admissions is the perfect job for me,” adds Ramez. “I’m really enjoying it – dealing with applications from both home and international students, some who need information about English language requirements and whether their qualifications – which I’ve not heard of before – meet our entry requirements.

“I love the work and it’s a really friendly team. I also know I’m making a difference to those students considering a degree in Maths at Manchester.”

Ramez’s manager, Julia Newbold, adds: “Having an apprentice in the School of Mathematics has been a really rewarding experience for all concerned. The whole team has embraced the opportunity of offering a young person a wide range of work experience in order to develop his knowledge and skills, in the hope that this would provide a firm foundation for their future career path.

“We have found Ramez to be enthusiastic and keen to learn, which has had a positive impact on us all.”