Uptree

As a Year 12 student with a passion for computers, Keanu knew he wanted to pursue a career in tech, but he didn’t yet know what route to take when he finished school. Thanks to a school assembly from Uptree, Keanu found out about Arm and the work experience they offered for students like him. Keanu quickly applied and was lucky enough to attend two Arm events, one in Manchester and another in Sheffield.

“[Uptree] talked about how Arm was doing a tech work experience day in… their Manchester office and I thought ‘this is a tech company that I’ve heard of before - doing a work experience day with them would be awesome!’”

“They did a Microbit workshop and a mini CPU/GPU/memory roleplay workshop. In retrospect the mini roleplay workshop was basically a simplified version of the kinds of things that I and other teams in Sheffield are actually working on right now. They really tried their best to help us understand the different components that go into an integrated SoC chip, and we had to push paper messages back and forth between everyone, which was interesting and a cool team-building activity. I think it really helped me to personally figure out what Arm works on; what the company culture is like.”

“At the Sheffield event, they gave presentations and held workshops related to the actual work they do. I had lengthy conversations with some of the employees. I was literally chatting in the kitchen with two of them several weeks ago when I started, and they were delighted to see me in the office as an employee this time.”

Through Uptree’s student newsletters, Keanu learnt about other tech events and employers he could apply to.

“I subscribed to the Uptree newsletter and signed up for more events - one of them was a Cyber Security Work Experience day … [I] really enjoyed getting to talk with some of the employees and apprentices who were working for [the company], and to learn more about what they did! All of this helped me figure out whether [that company] would be an organisation I wanted to work for/do a degree apprenticeship with.”

“I did a FuturesUP [multi-industry] event in Manchester at PwC’s office. Doing the assessment centre group exercises back then gave me a great insight as to what the degree apprenticeship application process would actually be like… Overall I really enjoyed it, some of the PwC apprentices gave a talk and I just enjoyed being able to talk with people who were the same age as me at this event.”

“The other experience with Uptree that I really enjoyed, and which genuinely altered the trajectory of my life, was the JP Morgan Technology Summer School. I applied to a JP Morgan Tech Masterclass in Year 12 but I annoyingly couldn’t go…However a month or so after that event happened, I got an email that the applications for the JP Morgan Summer School were still open, and thankfully the team at Uptree let me apply for it… and I was accepted.”

“The Arm, JP Morgan and FuturesUP events that Uptree facilitated were integral and really helped when I started Year 13 and started to fill out university/degree apprenticeship applications. Having a taster of all of these companies through their work experience days, and being able to talk to a variety of firms at the FuturesUP careers stalls and doing workshops gave me the practical foothold and confidence when choosing which apprenticeships and which companies to apply for! It’s already hard enough to filter out which companies you’d want to do an apprenticeship with on the basis of the projects and press releases they write up about on their website - visiting their offices definitely gave me a more crystal clear impression as to what it’d be like to work for these companies! Also, the fact that Uptree and the partner companies went out of their way to help people from low-income backgrounds like myself to attend these events was crucial - I wouldn’t have gone to as many of these events otherwise.”

Keanu is now completing a Software Engineer Degree Apprenticeship with Arm in their Sheffield Office.

“I’m just really glad Uptree exists and that you guys organised all of these events - without them, I don’t think I would be in this role with Arm.”