Just turned 24. Advice to get into Mechanical Engineering.
Discussion
Hello everyone
This may sound similar to some threads posted recently but I am after some advice for myself.
Quick background about myself.
Foolishly I performed poor in school, due to not trying (didn't know what I wanted to do when I left)
Best grades were GCSE English and Maths C, the rest of my grades were D with a couple of E's.
Did apprenticeship for 2 years in plastering, it ended due to centre closure in my area combined with my last year working on site for a plasterer who was using me as cheap labour instead of plastering.
I then moved on to multiple dead end retail jobs and finally the last 2 years, I've worked for a large multi franchise car dealer as a parts advisor.
I have taught myself to work on cars, joinery, basic electrics and other numerous DIY tasks.
I love finding out how things work and I want to work ideally in a job using my hands.
I would like a career in Mechanical engineering, though some people may not class them as true engineering roles, I would ideally like to train as a maintenance/fitter, machinist or in fabrication.
Due to my grades, I know university isn't a option and from the looks of it, a lot of apprenticeships/traineeships
isn't either due to requiring 5 A-C GCSE grades minimum.
Would learning a mechanical engineering course at my local college be a good way to get into it?
I am just a bit wary at doing a course for a few years and once qualified, jobs being hard to come from it.
Would highly appreciate some advice from people in the same industry
Many thanks
Sam
This may sound similar to some threads posted recently but I am after some advice for myself.
Quick background about myself.
Foolishly I performed poor in school, due to not trying (didn't know what I wanted to do when I left)
Best grades were GCSE English and Maths C, the rest of my grades were D with a couple of E's.
Did apprenticeship for 2 years in plastering, it ended due to centre closure in my area combined with my last year working on site for a plasterer who was using me as cheap labour instead of plastering.
I then moved on to multiple dead end retail jobs and finally the last 2 years, I've worked for a large multi franchise car dealer as a parts advisor.
I have taught myself to work on cars, joinery, basic electrics and other numerous DIY tasks.
I love finding out how things work and I want to work ideally in a job using my hands.
I would like a career in Mechanical engineering, though some people may not class them as true engineering roles, I would ideally like to train as a maintenance/fitter, machinist or in fabrication.
Due to my grades, I know university isn't a option and from the looks of it, a lot of apprenticeships/traineeships
isn't either due to requiring 5 A-C GCSE grades minimum.
Would learning a mechanical engineering course at my local college be a good way to get into it?
I am just a bit wary at doing a course for a few years and once qualified, jobs being hard to come from it.
Would highly appreciate some advice from people in the same industry
Many thanks
Sam
The issue you have now is that you'll soon be difficult to employ as an apprentice.
I would suggest you get your GCSEs by studying evenings, get your sciences if you can, maybe boost your maths and English.
Then you'd probably need to carry on in the part time study doing mechanical engineering courses. If you can get work at an machine shop then that would obviously help but make sure it's not an old pops place that regards even the CNC mill with suspicion.
I would suggest you get your GCSEs by studying evenings, get your sciences if you can, maybe boost your maths and English.
Then you'd probably need to carry on in the part time study doing mechanical engineering courses. If you can get work at an machine shop then that would obviously help but make sure it's not an old pops place that regards even the CNC mill with suspicion.
If you're confident that you can get back into the swing of studying fairly quickly there should be no reason you couldn't do a degree course with a foundation year
I've spoken to a few universities that are willing to consider me for a degree with a foundation entry on engineering degrees with just C grade GCSEs and a NVQ. I think the the main things is showing an interest in the subject and being prepared for adapting back to study again.
I've spoken to a few universities that are willing to consider me for a degree with a foundation entry on engineering degrees with just C grade GCSEs and a NVQ. I think the the main things is showing an interest in the subject and being prepared for adapting back to study again.
Type R Tom said:
If you want to be hands on I'd think carefully about a degree being the right move. There is very little practical work and you won't enjoy the time differentiating equations when you could be playing with a lathe!
This, so many jobs don't require a degree education that will leave you straddled with 5 figures of debt.I'd be looking to take additional/re-take weaker GCSE's in the evenings and then start applying to some of the larger co's apprenticeships. Family friend from SA of similar age had no formal British qualifications and only a little experience in a practical job, got an training/apprentice/junior role with either National Grid or BT to become a hands-on network (outside) engineer. Think this included a day or 2 a week in a classroom, rest on the job.
DuraAce said:
Or the RN/RAF? They're like the army but without the soldiering!
I have access to the vacancy lists and the RN need Marine Engineers and their current ones get good retention bonuses plus a bonus after each engineering course. If you fancy the subs it's lots of money but I imagine it's a s
t lifestyle.The RAF are short on ground vehicle mechanics and as an RM VM I'd maybe choose that over the Army/RM if I had the chance to turn back the clock. It's still likely to be more of a fitter role than proper engineering though. The RAF does have a Gen Tech Workshops role that to me sounds interesting and I was looking to transfer to. They are at full capacity though and I've decided to look outside the forces due to the bulls
t.Thanks for the replies everyone.
I have thought about retaking GCSES through night classes. However in my area, they only seem to offer maths and English, as science is difficult to examine due to coursework making up the majority of your grade.
I am sure there is a way to get them done though.
There does seem to be a number of apprentice positions through large energy, telecoms and shipping companies. I just need to pull my finger out, as I'm getting older than they prefer.
I haven't thought of the armed forces, I will investigate more.
If anyone still has more input, it's really appreciated.
I have thought about retaking GCSES through night classes. However in my area, they only seem to offer maths and English, as science is difficult to examine due to coursework making up the majority of your grade.
I am sure there is a way to get them done though.
There does seem to be a number of apprentice positions through large energy, telecoms and shipping companies. I just need to pull my finger out, as I'm getting older than they prefer.
I haven't thought of the armed forces, I will investigate more.
If anyone still has more input, it's really appreciated.
I thought I wanted to 'do' mechanical engineering (and had average grades) so did a mech eng degree at Brunel with a foundation year first to improve my maths etc. There was a hell of a lot of maths with no actual hands on stuff in my foundation year (that was 15 years ago though).
After the first year I couldn't really hack it so dropped out and ended up lucking into a great job in an unrelated sector.
Your results may differ, but my experience of the start of a mech eng degree was just lots of maths and some CAD work. You may like the sound of that, but its not all swaft production and greasy hands (which I would have loved).
After the first year I couldn't really hack it so dropped out and ended up lucking into a great job in an unrelated sector.
Your results may differ, but my experience of the start of a mech eng degree was just lots of maths and some CAD work. You may like the sound of that, but its not all swaft production and greasy hands (which I would have loved).
I left school at 16 with plenty of ability but very poor grades (circa 1992), I ended up falling into a welding/fabrication apprenticeship. This was at a time when most kids didn't even know what an apprenticeship was, as the idea of bright kids doing something practical for a job had become very unfashionable.
After finishing my apprenticeship I moved around a few local fabrication firms trying to gain experience and earn more. By this point a lot of my friends from school had started graduating and were starting to get decent jobs. Up until this point, I had always been to one who always had the most money out of my mates (almost all of them went to University). Suddenly, they all had more than me, even though they were just starting off in their new jobs/careers and I had been doing what I was doing for 7 years. They also weren't going home covered in crap.
I felt like I was going nowhere, at work as well as at home, and so, at the age of 24 I enrolled on a foundation year to get me onto a B'Eng in Mechanical Engineering. It was a bit of a culture shock.
Friday - Go to work with a bunch of blokes who you wouldn't let anywhere near your sister (or, in some cases, your brother)
Monday - Start at Uni with a bunch of children who think that you are there to teach them.
4 years later I graduated with a 2:1 and for some strange reason decided to do an M'Sc in Engineering Design.
I ended up taking a graduate Mechanical Design role with Siemens. I was by now living with my girlfriend (now wife) and her young daughter. things were very tight on a graduate wage. I started on 18K (got a raise to 20K within a few months). One of the mates I mentioned earlier had just become a GP and was earning the sort of money that goes with that job. It made me question if I had left things too late and was destined not to progress as I was by this point just turning 30 and still pretty inexperienced.
I chopped and changed jobs a lot over the next 3 years. Each time I left a position I was always asked by my current employer " why "? The answer was always the same. "because their paying me more". I was there for the money and I still had/have that shop floor mentality of going up the road for a few quid more. Once, a particularly miffed boss talked about the prestige of working for that particular company. I asked him if I could use prestige to pay my mortgage.
One day, whilst working for a very well know designer of domestic appliances, I got talking to a sub-contract/freelance design engineer. He started telling me how much he was earning, along with all the tax benefits of being a Ltd company. Within 2 months I was sub-contracting and have been now for the last 8 years. In that time I have never been without work even though I started contracting a couple of months before the start of one of histories worst recessions.
My advice for what it's worth:
- Don't go into fabrication - The stuff that pays best generally has crap working conditions, and even that doesn't pay that well.
- If you really want to go down the practical route get on a apprenticeship, but do it with the long term aim of eventually doing a more academic qualification (HNC etc). This will give you a lot more options long term.
- There is a lot of romantic guff talked about earing a living doing something with you hands. The rose tint slips away pretty quickly when you are working out on site in the pissing rain in November with some ahole foreman screaming at you. I sometimes/often am bored stless working in an office, but I'm not cold or wet and I'm not covered/crawling in crap. Also, it is much harder to earn really good money holding a screwdriver. It is marginally easier to earn really good money tapping away at a keyboard. I love being in my garage rebuilding a bike. But I might not like doing it everyday, for somebody else.
- If going down the forces route (which I think I may have chosen if I had to do it all again), from a limited experience of working with people who have done the same, forget the Army. Go for RN or RAF, more interesting kit, better conditions etc. Get them to pay for as many qualifications as possible.
- If you go for an office based role CAD is a very saleable skill that can allow you to move between different industries with relative ease.
-If you are after earning really good money, engineering isn't an easy way to do it, particularly as an employee. Also, what may seem like a good wage/salary in your mid twenties doesn't look so good in your mid thirties when you may have mortgage, kids etc. So think about that.
Sorry for the long post. I just want to say that it can be done, even at the ripe old age of 24.
After finishing my apprenticeship I moved around a few local fabrication firms trying to gain experience and earn more. By this point a lot of my friends from school had started graduating and were starting to get decent jobs. Up until this point, I had always been to one who always had the most money out of my mates (almost all of them went to University). Suddenly, they all had more than me, even though they were just starting off in their new jobs/careers and I had been doing what I was doing for 7 years. They also weren't going home covered in crap.
I felt like I was going nowhere, at work as well as at home, and so, at the age of 24 I enrolled on a foundation year to get me onto a B'Eng in Mechanical Engineering. It was a bit of a culture shock.
Friday - Go to work with a bunch of blokes who you wouldn't let anywhere near your sister (or, in some cases, your brother)
Monday - Start at Uni with a bunch of children who think that you are there to teach them.
4 years later I graduated with a 2:1 and for some strange reason decided to do an M'Sc in Engineering Design.
I ended up taking a graduate Mechanical Design role with Siemens. I was by now living with my girlfriend (now wife) and her young daughter. things were very tight on a graduate wage. I started on 18K (got a raise to 20K within a few months). One of the mates I mentioned earlier had just become a GP and was earning the sort of money that goes with that job. It made me question if I had left things too late and was destined not to progress as I was by this point just turning 30 and still pretty inexperienced.
I chopped and changed jobs a lot over the next 3 years. Each time I left a position I was always asked by my current employer " why "? The answer was always the same. "because their paying me more". I was there for the money and I still had/have that shop floor mentality of going up the road for a few quid more. Once, a particularly miffed boss talked about the prestige of working for that particular company. I asked him if I could use prestige to pay my mortgage.
One day, whilst working for a very well know designer of domestic appliances, I got talking to a sub-contract/freelance design engineer. He started telling me how much he was earning, along with all the tax benefits of being a Ltd company. Within 2 months I was sub-contracting and have been now for the last 8 years. In that time I have never been without work even though I started contracting a couple of months before the start of one of histories worst recessions.
My advice for what it's worth:
- Don't go into fabrication - The stuff that pays best generally has crap working conditions, and even that doesn't pay that well.
- If you really want to go down the practical route get on a apprenticeship, but do it with the long term aim of eventually doing a more academic qualification (HNC etc). This will give you a lot more options long term.
- There is a lot of romantic guff talked about earing a living doing something with you hands. The rose tint slips away pretty quickly when you are working out on site in the pissing rain in November with some a
hole foreman screaming at you. I sometimes/often am bored stless working in an office, but I'm not cold or wet and I'm not covered/crawling in crap. Also, it is much harder to earn really good money holding a screwdriver. It is marginally easier to earn really good money tapping away at a keyboard. I love being in my garage rebuilding a bike. But I might not like doing it everyday, for somebody else.- If going down the forces route (which I think I may have chosen if I had to do it all again), from a limited experience of working with people who have done the same, forget the Army. Go for RN or RAF, more interesting kit, better conditions etc. Get them to pay for as many qualifications as possible.
- If you go for an office based role CAD is a very saleable skill that can allow you to move between different industries with relative ease.
-If you are after earning really good money, engineering isn't an easy way to do it, particularly as an employee. Also, what may seem like a good wage/salary in your mid twenties doesn't look so good in your mid thirties when you may have mortgage, kids etc. So think about that.
Sorry for the long post. I just want to say that it can be done, even at the ripe old age of 24.
I did an apprenticeship in Maintenance Engineering when I was 18.
My first bit of advice to you would to not try and re-take any GCSE qualifications, it's not necessary.
Get yourself enrolled on your local college's part time/full time BTEC level 3 Diploma in Mechanical/Manufacturing Engineering. You should have a view to progress to the HNC directly after this.
It wouldn't be unreasonable for you to have 'lost' your GCSE certificates in the 8 years since you took them, so don't worry too much about all those B's you got not being able to be proven
The college will help you find apprenticeships also; I'd say once you've done the first 2 years at college, you'll have a better chance of getting on a scheme, but some employers will look at you bettering yourself and take you on anyway.
Most maintenance roles are multi-skilled now a days, so it may be better to undertake the 'Operations and Maintenance' course, as this combines both mechanical and electrical type work. Electricians usually find work easier and are sometimes better paid, not always though.
Salaries range from about 25k up to 50k with shifts. You can make more money in the specialist factories and offshore but as a general rule, you'll make £40k if you work hard and get into a good factory.
Good luck.
My first bit of advice to you would to not try and re-take any GCSE qualifications, it's not necessary.
Get yourself enrolled on your local college's part time/full time BTEC level 3 Diploma in Mechanical/Manufacturing Engineering. You should have a view to progress to the HNC directly after this.
It wouldn't be unreasonable for you to have 'lost' your GCSE certificates in the 8 years since you took them, so don't worry too much about all those B's you got not being able to be proven
The college will help you find apprenticeships also; I'd say once you've done the first 2 years at college, you'll have a better chance of getting on a scheme, but some employers will look at you bettering yourself and take you on anyway.
Most maintenance roles are multi-skilled now a days, so it may be better to undertake the 'Operations and Maintenance' course, as this combines both mechanical and electrical type work. Electricians usually find work easier and are sometimes better paid, not always though.
Salaries range from about 25k up to 50k with shifts. You can make more money in the specialist factories and offshore but as a general rule, you'll make £40k if you work hard and get into a good factory.
Good luck.
It's much more difficult to get on an apprenticeship when you're over 25 because your training isn't funded by government any more.
Re: Engineering. I'm an engineer working in design for some major hardware products. It's mainly desk based, but when I do get away from my desk it's a lot of fun! It might mean a week at a test facility, or just a couple of days with the customer. When you work in design and development it's all about getting to the end game and then finding the next challenge!
Re: Engineering. I'm an engineer working in design for some major hardware products. It's mainly desk based, but when I do get away from my desk it's a lot of fun! It might mean a week at a test facility, or just a couple of days with the customer. When you work in design and development it's all about getting to the end game and then finding the next challenge!
Modern mechanical engineering is a fair bit academic and heavy on the maths mostly sat on a CAD package and not using your hands. Maybe it's a technician or production role that you actually are after, try searching for those terms instead and you might find some more inspiration.
The forces have many roles in those areas due to the maintenance and manufacturing side, you'll find more in the RN and RAF than the Army and are still young enough to be considered (but have only a few years left until those options reduce), the forces have the added benefit of fitness, travel and paid for education as well as decent salaries too.
The forces have many roles in those areas due to the maintenance and manufacturing side, you'll find more in the RN and RAF than the Army and are still young enough to be considered (but have only a few years left until those options reduce), the forces have the added benefit of fitness, travel and paid for education as well as decent salaries too.
Technician roles at engineering test facilities are a good mix of hands on and technical skills.
Pays really well at places like JLR Too, think most start off as mechanics but some come in with a level 3 engineering BTEC and then get a engine test technician diploma through the company.
No idea where you're located but just my 2 pence from working at an engine testing facility for a year.
For example mate, read the junior technican bit at the bottom
Pays really well at places like JLR Too, think most start off as mechanics but some come in with a level 3 engineering BTEC and then get a engine test technician diploma through the company.
No idea where you're located but just my 2 pence from working at an engine testing facility for a year.
For example mate, read the junior technican bit at the bottom
Edited by l354uge on Monday 25th July 21:11
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