Thinking of going into engineering
Discussion
hidetheelephants said:
The IMechE comic said a while ago that ChemEng was in demand and attracts the best grad wages atm, but you can't go wrong with a plain vanilla mech BEng; an 2.1 from a good uni will get you work anywhere from the north sea to the City.
ChemEng, good allrounders, chemistry optional 
Hi Opara - I graduated a few years back from the Poly down the road in Sheffield. I also studied Maths, Physics, and DT at A-level. So I'm looking back now at where you are currently.
If it genuinely interests you, then go for it. Engineering, as a very very broad term, is a great thing to be involved in. If you like to learn about how things work, how they are made etc, then its great. Engineers look at the world in a very different way to other people!
Don't bother with a crap Uni or Poly, as your only making it harder for yourself (from experience!). Be realistic, there's no shame. I am not a top grade student, but I am very good in other areas. Really think about your strengths. (See below for alternatives!).
Do Mechanical Engineering, or, Electrical engineering (this is what I wish I'd done knowing what I do now).
Do take on board that it is going to be significantly more hard work than all your friends doing English and Media studies, spending half the week playing sports or hungover. I don't care what they will say, it really is.
Definitely, definitely, definitely, do a placement year. Apply to lots, and apply early. This is VERY important, in terms of what you will learn, and employability afterwards.
I would also seriously consider how 'academically minded' you are. In hindsight - I am not, hence why I struggled at Uni and muddle through.
There are increasingly more options to do vocational HND's and degree's, with medium and large organisations, in mechanical, electrical, or similar subjects. You will also be earning rather than racking up debt. This is something I feel I would have excelled at, and would have been a better use of my time, however its all in the past.
I could give you some more advice if you fancy, from the perspective of having been in your position not too long ago (I too am in Leeds).
If it genuinely interests you, then go for it. Engineering, as a very very broad term, is a great thing to be involved in. If you like to learn about how things work, how they are made etc, then its great. Engineers look at the world in a very different way to other people!
Don't bother with a crap Uni or Poly, as your only making it harder for yourself (from experience!). Be realistic, there's no shame. I am not a top grade student, but I am very good in other areas. Really think about your strengths. (See below for alternatives!).
Do Mechanical Engineering, or, Electrical engineering (this is what I wish I'd done knowing what I do now).
Do take on board that it is going to be significantly more hard work than all your friends doing English and Media studies, spending half the week playing sports or hungover. I don't care what they will say, it really is.
Definitely, definitely, definitely, do a placement year. Apply to lots, and apply early. This is VERY important, in terms of what you will learn, and employability afterwards.
I would also seriously consider how 'academically minded' you are. In hindsight - I am not, hence why I struggled at Uni and muddle through.
There are increasingly more options to do vocational HND's and degree's, with medium and large organisations, in mechanical, electrical, or similar subjects. You will also be earning rather than racking up debt. This is something I feel I would have excelled at, and would have been a better use of my time, however its all in the past.
I could give you some more advice if you fancy, from the perspective of having been in your position not too long ago (I too am in Leeds).
bitwrx said:
# Go to the best university you can get into.
Yep:- If you're not sure what type of engineering you want to do, choose a university with a non-specialised first year that allows you to choose what to specialise in from yr 2 (or even three [Cambridge ??]) onwards. Don't choose your course on which option you perceive to be easiest. Equally, don't choose your course on what you perceive to be most useful. Do what you enjoy most.
- Make good use of your non-studying time: get into a club; get an engineering-related summer job/placement/internship; sex many girlies.
- Apply for jobs before Christmas in your final year, even if you've been offered a job from one of your summer placements.
- Do Erasmus.
Get in at a good university, if it's not in the top 15 for engineering most of the brand name graduate schemes won't take you.
Do an MEng, again it opens far more doors and tends to be a requirement for many of the top grad schemes.
Do what you enjoy is a good bit of advice, look for signs of "proto-engineering" in your life, what engineering puzzles did you solve in your own time. Pick the branch that comes closest to this. But don't worry really a degree is just jumping through hoop to prove your clever, you won't use half of it and most jobs will not expect you to have any discipline specific knowledge straight out of uni. Even if you end up not liking engineering an engineering degree is still one of the most useful and sets you up fairly well for many careers.
As far as sexing the girlies; the societies advice is pretty good. Join plenty and at least one with a decent male/female ratio, even if you are lame by year two you'll be the "experienced older man" by the time the freshers arrive. Oh, and dump your first 3 girlfriends....... you'll never find the true "one" unless you do and there are plenty of other "ones" just in case she's in your first three....
I do need to stress getting experience though.
It is my biggest regret from my Engineering Degree. Within 2 weeks of working in Industry I was inspired with ideas and a renewed focus which I could put towards my degree. However, I'd already finished my degree with a less than acceptable 2:2.
Real employers as opposed to Grad Schemes are more interested in where you have worked and what you have done rather than your grades.
It is my biggest regret from my Engineering Degree. Within 2 weeks of working in Industry I was inspired with ideas and a renewed focus which I could put towards my degree. However, I'd already finished my degree with a less than acceptable 2:2.
Real employers as opposed to Grad Schemes are more interested in where you have worked and what you have done rather than your grades.
Do all of your research, about which places do what, and then when you've decided what's best, also apply to Oxford or Cambridge, and to Imperial.
Others also have excellent courses, possibly even better in a few specific areas, but you can't know yet if that niche that university x excels in is what you want to spend your life doing, and Oxbridge on your certificate opens all sorts of doors.
Others also have excellent courses, possibly even better in a few specific areas, but you can't know yet if that niche that university x excels in is what you want to spend your life doing, and Oxbridge on your certificate opens all sorts of doors.
My advice would be to do it!
I'm currently in my 3rd year of a 4 year MEng course at bath.
I wasn't sure of what I wanted to do (was torn between accounting/actuarial work and engineering) but engineering allowed me to keep my options open.
My advice would be to get placements (summer/year out, whatever suits) because experience counts for a lot after you leave.
I'm currently in my 3rd year of a 4 year MEng course at bath.
I wasn't sure of what I wanted to do (was torn between accounting/actuarial work and engineering) but engineering allowed me to keep my options open.
My advice would be to get placements (summer/year out, whatever suits) because experience counts for a lot after you leave.
cookie118 said:
My advice would be to do it!
I'm currently in my 3rd year of a 4 year MEng course at bath.
I wasn't sure of what I wanted to do (was torn between accounting/actuarial work and engineering) but engineering allowed me to keep my options open.
My advice would be to get placements (summer/year out, whatever suits) because experience counts for a lot after you leave.
Some very good points being made about getting experience, a year in industry is a hugely valuable thing to do. I would suggest during the degree rather than before as your maths skills will 'go off' if rested so soon after finishing school.I'm currently in my 3rd year of a 4 year MEng course at bath.
I wasn't sure of what I wanted to do (was torn between accounting/actuarial work and engineering) but engineering allowed me to keep my options open.
My advice would be to get placements (summer/year out, whatever suits) because experience counts for a lot after you leave.
BigBen said:
cookie118 said:
My advice would be to do it!
I'm currently in my 3rd year of a 4 year MEng course at bath.
I wasn't sure of what I wanted to do (was torn between accounting/actuarial work and engineering) but engineering allowed me to keep my options open.
My advice would be to get placements (summer/year out, whatever suits) because experience counts for a lot after you leave.
Some very good points being made about getting experience, a year in industry is a hugely valuable thing to do. I would suggest during the degree rather than before as your maths skills will 'go off' if rested so soon after finishing school.I'm currently in my 3rd year of a 4 year MEng course at bath.
I wasn't sure of what I wanted to do (was torn between accounting/actuarial work and engineering) but engineering allowed me to keep my options open.
My advice would be to get placements (summer/year out, whatever suits) because experience counts for a lot after you leave.
You can get lucky with pay. My job, whilst not a graduate-scheme, is a graduate-level job and I'm on 50% more than my mates who work for BAE and Bentley. Saying that, my flatmate who also works for the same company, as an engineer, but in a different department is on less than half of what I am.
Guess I was just really lucky.
Guess I was just really lucky.
custardkid said:
+1
Good engineers are very employable in Engineering and any business!
As they tend to be problem solvers, logical, independent, used to project based environments, used to working hard / long hours and IT literate
- choose the poshest uni you can (it makes a difference when people read your CV)
- Choose a course that is rounded with a modules in management, foreign language, Marketing etc etc as well as the usually thermo / fluid dynamics
- If you like cars do Automotive at Loughborough - designing JCBs is more interesting than sugar cube sorting machines IMHO
- do a placement year, having done real work in a company helps loads when interviewing for a grad job.
- apply for placements / jobs in the October the year before its needed... about 50 applications should give you some options.
my history is:
Automotive at Loughborough
to Engineering Bentley Motors
to HighStreet Banking Analytics
to Management Consultancy
Custard
Ahh a fellow loughborough bodGood engineers are very employable in Engineering and any business!
As they tend to be problem solvers, logical, independent, used to project based environments, used to working hard / long hours and IT literate
- choose the poshest uni you can (it makes a difference when people read your CV)
- Choose a course that is rounded with a modules in management, foreign language, Marketing etc etc as well as the usually thermo / fluid dynamics
- If you like cars do Automotive at Loughborough - designing JCBs is more interesting than sugar cube sorting machines IMHO
- do a placement year, having done real work in a company helps loads when interviewing for a grad job.
- apply for placements / jobs in the October the year before its needed... about 50 applications should give you some options.
my history is:
Automotive at Loughborough
to Engineering Bentley Motors
to HighStreet Banking Analytics
to Management Consultancy
Custard
I did mechanical and remember doing that british sugar cube sorting thing in first year. Its pretty awful to be honest because hardly anyone knows anything about designing electro-mechanical systems. Its more a ice-breaker. But yes designing JCB's sounds well good! I missed out!
OP, as you are in Leeds then (biased here), I would strongly recommend having a look at Loughborough for an Engineering degree course. Very good rep, lots of industry is involved with the teaching helping give you a feel for how engineering projects are run, research facilities are great (especially in Aero/Auto building) and research opportunities are very well funded if you ever think of going the PhD router later on. entry requirements are quite high now I believe, higher than when I started!!.
in Mech Eng I did a straight MEng + year in industry so 5 years total.... every single year you are involved in some kind of project with an industrial partner. In first year everyone does the british sugar cube sorter thing, but then after that you split into lots of groups and end up working with different companies. I got Siemens gas turbines, JCB and Perkins engines. I took a CFD module and one group in there actually ended up helping a local company greatly in getting started with modelling nasal inhalers.
The loughborough courses, from my knowledge could do with a little more on the business side of Engineering... but they do have modules covering business/law/finance and business systems so in essence its quite nicely rounded. Its a shame they never replaced the turbo machinery guy when he retired, we were the last guys to do that module and it bordered on insane. so many bloody formulas!!! and he wanted you to recall them at will, any time!!
Agree with all the other advice too... you must start looking for grad jobs or summer internships before christmas, after that a lot of the good ones will be gone and as there are exams in january, you probably won't have lots of time to spend on applications. Getting involved with societies and clubs is also a must and if you like motorsport, formula student is a very good way to get your mits dirty designing and building in the garage!
Mechanical/Aero/Auto are all good ones to do, Mechanical gives you a really good grounding in the fundamentals and offers a lot of choice later on to study more specialised subjects like CFD or Laser/Optical measurement. Auto?Aero will of course be more focused towards automotive/Aero engineering problems which could be a limiting factor in some instances, but generally it won't be and it'll look good on the CV to any company you apply for. Its very easy, I think to move around the different engineering faculties, even from mathematics or pure physics. One of my mates went from MSc in Maths to a PhD in the Automotive faculty and now is a financial analyst! So you really can move about a lot. Whatever you do, if you do it well engineering will open a lot of doors for you.
I love Loughborough, Im still there now, doing an automotive based PhD and hoping to move on to JLR when Im done.
One piece of advice I would give is ignore the "we are dying for british engineers" spiel. If they are dying for us, then they don't seem to show it!!
If you want a tour round loughborough I'll be more than willing to show you round the campus! and can fill you in on various modules available... (The IC engines module in mech eng is probably the best module I ever did and thats why the guy who taught it is now also my PhD supervisor)
Edited by Otispunkmeyer on Sunday 9th October 21:20
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