Voices of Student Apprenticeship: Exploring the Unique Needs and Perspectives of Community College Students

This paper explores student perspectives on a paid and credit-bearing technology apprenticeship program offered by a community college in a large metropolitan area.The program is offered in collaboration with a large non-profit organization that brings together local branches of Fortune 500 companies to offer apprenticeship positions in the software engineering technology field.The goal of this paper is to describe how technology apprentices enter existing Communities of Practice (CoP's) at their partner companies.In doing so, the paper will explore apprentices' perspectives on their company environments, work roles, team structure, and learning processes.By highlighting the insights of student apprentices, the authors hope to motivate further programmatic improvements, and to help others become familiar with the unique needs and perspectives of this student population.During the most recent cohort of the apprenticeship program, the authors recorded the feedback that apprentices shared, as well as their own observations of