Holly Antrobus’ passion for cars grew from watching her grandad work on his collection of vintage vehicles. Now Holly has a head start on her apprenticeship after completing the UCOL Te Pūkenga NZ Certificate in Automotive Engineering Level 3 programme.
Growing up, Holly always admired her grandad’s vintage car collection. She would often clean them and watch her grandad work on them, picking up some knowledge along the way.
“Cars in general have always been a passion of mine, but I had never thought about working on them as a career. But when I left high school I was a bit stuck about what to choose for my next path. I saw that UCOL had a pre-apprenticeship programme. It suited my passion so I thought I’d give it a go,” says Holly.
Holly took a tour of the UCOL Te Pūkenga Automotive workshop and was impressed with what it had to offer.
“I was amazed at the resources they had. It was good that they had multiple vehicles to work on instead of everyone working on the same one.”
Holly enjoyed how hands-on the
NZ Certificate in Automotive Engineering L3 was and valued the support she received from her lecturer.
“It was the hands-on work that I really loved, instead of it all being theory. It was really good to have a couple of practices before doing assessments so you really knew what you were doing.”
“My lecturer, Lance Funnell, was a very good mentor. He was also a lot of help in finding places to apply for an apprenticeship. He was helpful in moving forward from UCOL, not just inside UCOL.”
In November 2019, Holly started working as an Apprentice Technician at Manawatu & TRC Toyota in Feilding. Her apprenticeship should only take her another two years as credits from her UCOL Te Pūkenga programme count towards it.
Holly says she is thankful to be able to wake up every morning and work on cars.
“At the moment I’m doing lots of services and having lots of fun with the people I’m working with. It’s great work. It’s obviously very different to UCOL because I’m working on customers’ cars.”
“I’m very thankful that Lance taught me the little things from the start, like putting a guard cover on the car, so that it’s a habit now. I’m glad l that I did the pre-apprentice programme otherwise I would be very stuck and not know a lot starting my apprenticeship.”
In the future, Holly wants repay Toyota for giving her an apprenticeship by progressing her career through the company. She would also like to apply her trade overseas one day.