Bruker’s Apprenticeship Program - The Karate Kid
Bruker’s Apprenticeship Program - The Karate Kid
An initial meeting with some mechanical engineers at a carees fair in Zurich in 2018 made Nilo Blum decide he wanted to become a design engineer. That set him on a path which will lead him to study mechanical engineering at a Fachhochschule (a university specifically for technical and applied subjects) in three years’ time.
A dedicated sportsman, Nilo trains hard and has just two steps to go before he reaches the coveted Black Belt status in his chosen discipline of Karate. His determination must have been spotted by the Bruker team because they first invited him to a 3-day ‘Praktikum’ (student placement) and subsequently awarded him one of the 24 apprenticeships offered that year.
Now more than a year in, Nilo is an enthusiastic trainee. He said, “I have a dedicated tutor who guides and helps me, I spend two days a week at school and the rest of the time working in the company. My first year covered many of the basic skills – computer aided design (CAD), technical drawing and the like – and now I’m moving into year two I will get the chance to work in development, production and QC departments.”
Over the years of its operation, the Bruker apprentice program has supported many hundreds of young people as they develop the skills they need to advance their careers. Many ‘graduates’ of the programme have stayed on to work with us and are now long-time employees – some are leading teams in the departments they first experienced as apprentices. Others, like Nilo plans to do, leave us to go into full-time higher education but even in this group, we are often able to welcome them back after they complete their degree, bringing the skills they learned back to the business.