David Cusack – L3 Infrastructure Technician Apprenticeship

David Cusack, Technician, provides an overview on his recently completed L3 Infrastructure Apprenticeship.

In November 2020, I started the L3 Infrastructure Technician Apprenticeship which is done through BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT. This was the first time the States of Guernsey had provided the opportunity for an apprenticeship in the IT sector, so I feel very fortunate to have been chosen.

The Apprenticeship was open to people in the IT industry with less than 2 years experience and it took just under a year and a half to complete. The course itself involved 6 exams, including; the CompTIA A+ which is a 2 part exam covering the core IT fundamentals in hardware as well as software; The MTA Mobility and Device Fundamentals Microsoft exam which covered various things like the depths of working on a Windows system, storage, encryption, cloud services and remote working; 3 BCS exams which varied from Coding and Project Deployment, to Cloud Services with all their varieties and capabilities; and Business Processes which covered the Data and Security regulations.

On top of the exams I had to complete a job tracker for an entire year and reach a target of 350 hours. There were certain competencies I had to achieve to make sure I was learning a wide variety of tasks, so I developed skills in a magnitude of areas. I was fortunate that Resolution IT were very supportive and allowed me to take part in any opportunity that arose, so I actually exceeded the 350 hour target by 86 hours.

The next stage was coursework, which involved showcasing my skills and ability through a series of projects, to see how I handled challenges and setbacks.

My Projects were based on:

• New user setup
• Creating monitoring dashboards in the office
• File Restoration to recover deleted data
• Fixing Backup issues
• Secure destruction and recycling process within regulations

After the coursework was submitted the next step was the Synoptic Project. This was a 3 day Project where I was tasked with creating and deploying 3 virtual computers to set requirements and specification and then testing the functionality. I then had to write up a report documenting the full process.

The final part was the exit interview which was with a member of the End Point Accessors at BCS. This gave the opportunity for me to expand upon any part of the apprenticeship and to provide any last additional pieces of evidence to improve my assessment.

I can proudly say after passing the Apprenticeship that I am now a certified BCS Level 3 Infrastructure Technician. On top of that qualification I also have a Microsoft qualification, CompTIA qualification and 3 additional BCS qualifications under my belt. The experience was certainly not without its challenges, but I am extremely grateful for the opportunity by the States of Guernsey and for the overwhelming support from Resolution IT. The apprenticeship has definitely made me a better IT Professional and I look forward to putting my new skills into practice.