Profile

Hi,

I’m K-Jo! I originally come from Ireland where I had no engineering background whatsoever ( just a lot of potatoes and farming ). I moved to England when I was 13 to live on a canal boat and start my first proper education. I originally thought I was going to do something with music and dance as I wasn’t that good at engineering and science. However, my physics teacher in year 10 really helped me find my inspiration that I had deep in my heart from a very young age – it just needed help being brought out. When I lived in Ireland, I was always intrigued about space and engineering and my inspiration actually came from jigsaws weirdly! Before my dad passed away when I was 9, we use to do jigsaws all the time and the whole idea of how they came together was amazing in my head which I then put towards the idea of engines and how they come together, just like jigsaws! Anyhow, once I finished secondary school, I magically fell upon an apprenticeship in space engineering and a year later, I am making antennas and sending them off to space!

I am doing a four year apprenticeship ( in my third year now ) where I am training to become a precision engineer at college and at work I am a maintenance engineer. Through my apprenticeship, all my education is paid for and I get full on practical experience through the company and the different areas in the company ( Oxford Space Systems ). I get to make and test on a variety of space technologies that come from the idea of origami!

As I am an apprentice, I get to see a lot of different areas in my company, from electronics to designing to business to manufacturing of all the space technologies. My main area of work though is putting together the antennas and other space technologies and making sure they all go through their tests successfully. For example, we have to do vibration tests and environmental tests as we have to make sure they will survive in space! This whole world of space engineering is all still so new to me so my day to day life is an exciting life of learning and new experiences that I will hold forever!

Before I came across my apprenticeship, I had no clue they actually existed and the plus bonus that I actually could get paid for my education and experience. My school persuaded me very well to just do A-levels and never brought up the idea of apprenticeships. I was very lucky that Oxford Space Systems fell upon my CV and contacted me. If it wasn’t for them finding me, I would be doing something that I know I wouldn’t like. Ever since I have taken this apprenticeship, I have loved every moment of it and it is helping bring all my dreams to life! So I want to put part of the money towards helping apprenticeships open their worlds to schools and helping students understand all their choices they have after school. All choices should be thrown into the world for children and help them understand what they can get from all choices, such as university, apprenticeships, A-levels. I also then want to put the rest of the money towards engineering courses for students in all stages of education so they can have a bigger idea of what the world of engineering is like and have a taster of it.