Making an impact: Alicia-Mae McCarron’s Degree Apprenticeship Story 

Meet Alicia-Mae McCarron, who after considering a traditional pathway into higher education, decided to take a more alternative route, choosing to undertake a Creative Digital Design Professional Degree Apprenticeship with COUCH Health. From career progression to company-wide impact, read more about Alicia’s apprenticeship journey.  

Choosing an alternative route into higher education 

Initially, I knew I wanted to go to university and I applied to (and was accepted on) a Fine Art course straight out of college. But then I saw the Creative Digital Design Professional Degree Apprenticeship and went through the process of applying for my role with COUCH Health. There were three stages to my interview – a first interview with the Design Lead, and a second interview that involved a design task. I was asked beforehand to create three social media posts which I was given the content for, and I had to design the posts and include the COUCH Health branding. Then in my second interview, I was asked to explain my thought process, and how the posts could be changed or improved. Ultimately, I was successful in securing my role as a Digital Design Degree Apprentice, and the business then supported my application to Manchester Met for my place on the degree apprenticeship.   

Working for an SME 

Equity and diversity are very important to me, and when I was researching degree apprenticeship opportunities, COUCH Health stood out as a company that aligned with my values. They’ve been supportive of me and of the other apprentices. They’re open to new ideas, and the culture is very much one of openness. 

I was able to schedule a meeting with our Founder and bring him my ideas to improve the apprentice experience here, and he took them on board and implemented them.

As a result, we’ve now set up monthly apprentice meetups where the four current apprentices can meet for peer-to-peer support and share knowledge from across our different courses.    

Taking the initiative  

The work that we do on the creative team aligns well with my course, so I’m very lucky that when I get a university assignment, I can usually apply it directly to a work project. If there isn’t a suitable project going on, I’m able to suggest or implement something that would benefit the business but also meets the requirements of my assignment. For example, I was studying the Visual Identity and Branding unit in first year, and at the time of the assignment, we happened to be working on rebranding a campaign called Demand Diversity. I was working on the rebrand with a senior designer, and I suggested to them that once we were done, we were going to need a brand guidelines document. I asked if I could lead on creating the document myself based on the work that I’d been doing and the knowledge I was gaining from my unit at university.  

The senior designer gave me the green light, and I created the brand guidelines document which ultimately was rolled out across the company.

Fast-tracking a promotion 

In my first year as a degree apprentice, the development conversations I’d been having with my line manager and Manchester Met skills coach in review meetings led to defined targets. This enabled me to put a business case forward based on meeting those development targets. 

I was successful in securing a promotion to Junior Digital Designer during my second year on the apprenticeship, which has been fantastic recognition of my work and achievements so far. I’m on the path to the career I want in a company I’m proud to work for, and none of that would have been possible without the degree apprenticeship.

Reflecting on Alicia’s apprenticeship journey, COUCH Health Founder and CEO, Ash Rishi, commented: “Alicia has written new brand guidelines that have changed the whole direction of our COUCH Health brand, and I can’t stress how impressive that is for a first-year digital design student with no digital design background.”   

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