On Friday, March 18, 2016, UK-based training company Just IT held its Just IT Apprenticeship Awards 2016, an annual event that celebrates the outstanding work of Just IT apprentices. These include an award for the apprentice who achieved the highest CompTIA exams score, and this year’s winner in that category is Aisha Kareem, digital experience associate at T. Rowe Price.

From a young age Kareem played with computers, exploring her vast interest in technology. So when the chance to take the CompTIA A+ certification exam arose, she jumped at the idea of learning about the technical side of the technology she loves.

When studying for A+ as part of her apprenticeship with JustIT, Kareem began to realize just how relevant everything she was learning in the classroom was to her job role. After taking and passing the exam, Kareem felt even more confident that she understood what was going on in her workplace. Before A+, she could sometimes feel lost and because of that felt she couldn’t get directly involved with any hands-on work. A+ had given her context and offered her valuable knowledge so that she better understood the reasons and causes behind problems and situations she faced.

Kareem believes A+ will help her reach different areas of the industry due to its reputation as a valuable, globally recognised, multi-technology certification. In passing it, she gained a lot of in-depth knowledge and was surprised by how much it covered. She plans to continue on to more subject-area-specific learning on topics like networking and security.

Kareem has now completed her apprenticeship and she sees herself remaining in the IT industry, working in coding and software development. Check out this video to hear more from Kareem directly and click here to learn more about A+.