"Growing up my dreams never forgot that day. Now having become a little older my flying fantasies have turned axis..my thoughts now pursue a hunger for knowledge, a deeper understanding and a passion to turn ambitions into reality."

Hi, I'm Louis, I'm 15 years old and a student at a secondary school in central London. This year I'll be sitting my GCSE's. My passions are all things aviation, science, sports, foreign languages and creative arts. The last couple of years has all been about rigorous study whilst pushing the limits of my physical endurance playing football as a goalkeeper for academy, school and London league teams.

Like most students of my age, I've not really given too much consideration to a specific future profession or occupation. I do have some pretty well-defined thoughts, but how to get more clarity and direction, become more knowledgeable and where to find a better understanding of what it might take to get closer to my aspirations and ambitions?

I figured this was probably something that would come later, probably after A-levels. So my recent focus has been to ensure that I make the right academic decisions, choosing GCSE subjects most relevant to my core areas of interest....and play football!

In my last school term I was tasked to find work experience as part of my year 10 curriculum. Without much guidance I had to think quickly to avoid a school based project (given to those who fail to find an self arranged option).

My immediate considerations were anything in the field of aviation or mechanical engineering. I knew this was going to be a challenging task with things not operating normally due to Covid. I searched online for options and made some follow-up calls but I struggled to find anything practical... that was until I connected to the Airbus website where I discovered the Airbus virtual online course, a collaborative educational project via a company called Springpod.

The Airbus virtual course, accepted by secondary schools for work experience study, was a perfect fit for my needs and I was especially delighted to have found such a relevant work from home option. Having enrolled on the Springpod/Airbus course in July, I got really stuck in. Logging on each day I learned a load of new stuff, attended webinars with industry experts and completed tasks at the end to pull all of that new found knowledge together. The course was a great introduction not only to Airbus but the aviation industry as a whole.

Divided into 4 sections, Civil Aviation, Sustainability, Space and Defence, virtual lectures were delivered by senior Airbus employers. They were so engaging and fun to be involved with and I found the breadth of each topic illuminating. It was also very satisfying discovering how some of the maths and physics I have learned in the school classroom applied to set problem tasks as part of the course. I now really understand that the stuff we learn in school is the foundation of everything we learn later on, and I can’t wait to get stuck into year 11.

The course also encouraged us to research industry sectors of interest and consider (beyond A Level) University options especially those with industry links and collaborative ventures.

In conclusion, Springpod and Airbus, via the work experience programme, have gifted me some excellent aviation industry insight and that will help me to make positive choices moving forward. I now realise that every knowledge step I take, is one closer to the work placement of my dreams."

Springpod's guide to getting work experience whilst at school. If you're in year 9, year 10, year 11, year 12 or year 13 you can get free online work experience at Springpod with some of the world's biggest companies.

Ambassador Stories: How I found the work experience of my dreams