Background: I'm familiar with Sparkbox's 6 month paid apprenticeship and know a few people who went through it. I'm also a graduate of the http://bloc.io full-stack apprenticeship.

If I'm not mistaking, the current software "craftsman" and "apprenticeship" movement has been largely influenced by Dave Hoover's Apprenticeship Patterns (free on the web): http://chimera.labs.oreilly.com/books/1234000001813/index.ht...

A few quotes from that book:

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This book is written for software apprentices—for people who have had a taste of developing software and want to take it further, but need some guidance. Whether you have a college degree from a prestigious computer science program or are entirely self-taught, you recognize that there are great developers out there, and you aspire to achieve the same mastery that they possess.

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When discussing what it means to be an apprentice, Marten Gustafson, one of our interviewees, put it best when he said, “I guess it basically means having the attitude that there’s always a better/smarter/faster way to do what you just did and what you’re currently doing. Apprenticeship is the state/process of evolving and looking for better ways and finding people, companies and situations that force you to learn those better/smarter/faster ways.” We think there’s a lot of value in having this internal drive that is not dependent on anyone else to bestow solutions upon you, and that leads you to find constructive ways of dealing with problems.

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Apprenticeship is the beginning of your journey as a software craftsman. During this time you will be primarily focused inward, intent on growing your craftsmanship. While you will benefit from the attention of your peers and more experienced developers, you must learn to grow yourself, to learn how you learn. This focus on yourself and your need to grow is the essence of what it means to be an apprentice.

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In my mind, the key difference between an internship and apprenticeship is the focus and purpose. Generally, a company hires an intern as a cheap way to get extra help. Sure, they will help the intern as needed, but primarily so they can accomplish something for the company.

Whereas, when a company takes on an apprentice, the primary focus is on providing an awesome, safe learning environment. Sure, the apprentice will likely do something of value for the company, but that's a side benefit.

Also, generally people think internship == work while apprenticeship == learning.

So technically there may not be a lot of difference, but I argue that the difference in paradigms has a large impact.

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I'm not familiar but any of the other apprenticeships, but Sparkbox's is much better than what's generally being discussed in the other comments here. You don't need to already have significant experience to join. All you need is an interest in web development. See more here: https://github.com/sparkbox/apprenticeships

So don't let one company's program taint your view of the rest!

user:	feedthebayer
created:	August 20, 2015
karma:	3
about:	https://twitter.com/feedthebayer Founder of http://GenusApp.com