Vision+Media Scheme - Dan's Story

A month later, after I’d settled in quite well with hydrant, the opportunity to further my work there presented itself through the Vision+Media apprenticeship scheme. This would be six months of paid training and work under what I had discovered was a great group of people. Most importantly, it afforded me the luxury of staying in Cumbria, which has always been important to me.

My only fear in all this was working with hydrant's 'tool of choice' - Drupal. I'd never really used it before, and heard that it can be a difficult tool to get your head around as a website developer. But it really wasn't as bad as I thought, and quite frankly I was blown away by the power of Drupal and the flexibility and speed with which it allows us to deploy sites; sites that the clients themselves can control.

In the four or so months I've been here, I've worked with Hydrant's developers on some great projects, including one of the biggest in the history of the company, and a smaller project that should be launching to the public soon. I've also been spending time researching exciting new technologies that have already received positive feedback from some of hydrant's clients.

The Vision+Media scheme has afforded me the chance to contribute some fantastic work towards real, live client projects, absorb the knowledge of all of hydrant's staff – developers, designers and businesspeople alike – and hopefully impart some knowledge in return. I hope to keep contributing towards hydrant’s success, and also have a few exciting ideas of my own that I’ll be able to pursue over the next few months.

My thanks go out to everyone at Hydrant, and to Simon at Vision+Media for this great opportunity.

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