Day 3 in Tubingen - after a weekend of settling in and exploring this beautiful city, today we began our research. After breakfast in the hotel the group ventured into the city to meet Mr. Schoelke (Tubingen's Mayor for Construction). Upon arrival with Stephan, Mr. Schoelke took us onto the roof of the 'blue tower' to show us an ariel view of the city and point us towards some of the sites of Tuebingen. We discussed his role in the development of the projects in the city and we also discussed our roles in our specific teams at DCC. We had a lengthy discussion about the difference in apprenticeships in England compared to the structure in Germany. After our meeting we walked from the blue tower to the market square and to the city hall where ... read more

Early Saturday morning the group met up to fly from Newcastle Airport to Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. It was tough for the group getting up before 6am on a Saturday morning. The flight was quick and relatively peaceful to Amsterdam, with the exception of a large group celebrating a milestone birthday. Each one of the members investigated the wine available and each one asked for ice even though the hostess had already explained to the others sat next to them that there were none. We might have even got the top of our heads in one of their ‘selfies’ but luckily we were far enough back from one of the members who had to use the sick bag. After landing at Schiphol Airport it was a quick pass through security and what seemed like a 5 ... read more

We cant believe how fast the two weeks have flown over. Today has been our last day of the programme and its been a interesting one! Up nice and early to lots of lovely rain, we headed out for the bus to cross roads. Took us about half hour to find our stop but we got there in the end. When we arrived we met with Tanya Zhyla and Denisa Sava, who were both lovely! They talked us through their amazing work that they do for all different types of people at their base. Their base is a walk in for Eu Migrants. They have helped over 1184 people in their years, 25% of this figure being female migrants. We were shocked to hear the range of different nationalities that have migrated to Sweden, people from ... read more

The morning began early setting off a 10 past 9, we went to meet Helena and Thomas who work with Communications and External Relations. They work together in different units dealing with different teams, Thomas explained they all want the same goals and objectives and working together dealing with internal parties to have a better attitude and getting people to work together with better understanding and to also move forward with different projects within their organisation. Thomas spoke about how they work to be transparent and make sure that they give information to anyone who requests it (with the exception of patient information and information regarding national security) and he also mentioned with any information that they give they must give it within 24 hours or at least give a response within that time frame that ... read more

We welcome Peter for his first full day, he brought a new energy to the group and excited to start his week with us and he brought the mild weather with him. We were all quite excited but nervous to present our presentations to the team, Peter introduced the team to the apprentices, the apprentice program and explained the council visions and aims. Ce'nedra was first and explained about her team, then we all took turns afterwards, Abby spoke about her team and how she helps other companies employ apprentices with funding that the council gives them. Then Paige and I spoke about housing solutions, what we do for our team and a little about ourselves - Katie then also spoke about herself and about how she helps with Peter's team. On the Afternoon we had ... read more