3 Tips For Final Year Synoptic Project As A Degree Apprentice

The synoptic project is designed to be tough, but it can be made easier.

Although it is designed to challenge you, there are things you can do to give yourself the best chance of scoring high and delivering a quality project.

I scored in the 90s for my project, and as part of my endpoint assessment interview, I was asked, 'What 3 tips would you give a Degree Apprentice starting their synoptic project?'

Here was my answer…

Photo by frame harirak on Unsplash

The project is designed to be big, so start early and give yourself as much time as possible.

Not only are these projects tough, but they are also huge!

In a project where you play every role, such as project manager and developer, the work soon stacks up. Additionally, this assignment is set in September and due in May—that’s 9 months! Before you think this is your apprenticeship provider being generous and you can start in January, this is actually an indicator of how big this assignment is. Trust me, the project will take the whole 9 months.

However, there is no rule that says you can’t start earlier, and you should. You’re told about the synoptic project at the end of year 3 after completing your development project, which is essentially a trial run for your synoptic, so you have an idea of what is needed. I started my project in July, completing the early stages such as defining requirements and researching the problem I was solving.

This was 2 months before the start of the year in September, which gave me a huge head start. While others scrambled to even think of what problem they would solve, I was starting my development.

There is no rule against starting early; the final year is tough, so take advantage of this and give yourself as much time as possible.

Choose a problem that intrigues you to sustain you over these 9 months.

With such a long project, burnout is highly likely, but you can prevent it.

We are all familiar with procrastinating over work we don’t want to do, and when finally sitting down to work, it can feel like time stops. Now imagine working on something like this for a whole 9 months—that’s painful, and burnout is expected. Instead, choose a problem that fascinates you and you want to solve. Don’t worry if it’s unconventional; you are being marked on the quality of your work, not the problem.

Of course, it has to be within the realms of your chosen apprenticeship, but you have more options than you think. For my project, I chose to tackle my company's strategic misalignment problem. The company had never shipped software before, but since introducing an AI solution, development skills and this need had increased tenfold.

My apprenticeship was in Software Engineering, but wait—this is a business problem, not a technical problem? Sure is, and a fascinating one at that. So what technical solution did I develop to solve this problem? I built a Python library for the company's main solution that would allow engineers to build Python scripts to automate their work. I ran meetings every Friday, showing the latest features of the solution and delivering training on how people who had never coded before could start to use it.

My company went from having 4 employees who could program to 19 automating work and creating efficiencies in the company.

I told you it was unconventional, but there was a software solution targeted at a problem that I wanted to solve, and I scored highly for it.

Lean on your network by asking others to join the project.

Although what you submit should be entirely your work, you don’t have to be alone in this.

When starting the project, I didn’t even consider asking anyone to join the team to resolve it. I thought, 'Well, it’s a university assignment, so only I should be working on it.' In fact, this was the biggest issue I faced during the project. I was one person working on a solution; this meant I had to do everything, and the project could only move as fast as I could. Additionally, the solution was entirely limited to my skills and ideas. By bringing in others, I could have delegated and eased a lot of the pressure I felt whilst delivering a better solution—two minds are better than one.

If you’re worried about being accused of cheating and losing marks, this is fine. The university is very understanding of the fact that in the real world, very few projects happen in isolation and typically include dedicated teams. Utilising others can result in a better product, a smoother project, and relieve a lot of pressures.

As long as the work you submit is your own, lean on your network and bring others into the project to help.