Another daughter to uni thread..

[David Martin]

We are about to start the parental trawl of university open days. My eldest is looking at Engineering, probably mechanical. I know there are various people of experience on here so I have a few questions:

1. I presume maths, further maths, harder maths and seriously tough maths is one of the ideal prerequisites. Any other ideal background studies?
2. What to look for in a course. How valuable is a good tie in with industrial placements?
3. Any particular departments/institutes recommended to look at or to avoid?

We are based in NE Scotland but travel is a distinct possibility. (I hear Nottingham do a really good line in applied fluid mechanics)

Edit: this would be for 2014 entry at the earliest

[Woofage]

We are about to start the parental trawl of university open days. My eldest is looking at Engineering, probably mechanical. I know there are various people of experience on here so I have a few questions:

1. I presume maths, further maths, harder maths and seriously tough maths is one of the ideal prerequisites. Any other ideal background studies?
2. What to look for in a course. How valuable is a good tie in with industrial placements?
3. Any particular departments/institutes recommended to look at or to avoid?

1. Physics!
2. Don't know (many summers have passed since).
2. Southampton, natch . Bit far for you though. Manchester?

We are based in NE Scotland but travel is a distinct possibility. (I hear Nottingham do a really good line in applied fluid mechanics)

Edit: this would be for 2014 entry at the earliest

Nottingham is good. I had an interview there as a 6th former (many summers have passed since...). Also went there on a course and stayed in hall. Nice place. Think my former tutor (a Fluid Mechanics specialist) moved there. Will check (edit: no, Loughborough).

[Karla]

Speaking from an electronic, rather than a mechanical point of view:

While EE is probably the most maths-intensive variant, any engineering course will indeed require maths.  If you do find one that doesn't, don't bother applying.  Courses are survivable without further maths but if she does it, her first year will be less painful (so I learned to my cost).

Physics is indeed the other universal prerequisite.

Our students who do industrial MEng projects are almost invariably offered jobs by their placement companies, and I only added the "almost" as a precaution.  Make of that what you will.

[David Martin]

The other question is whether professional body accreditation is a must for engineering courses. Southampton in some ways is easy to get to by plane, and we have relatives there

She did Physcs (and tech studies) standard grade and is definitely doing maths at higher. If she isn't doing physics higher this year then she can do it next year, but she is doing tech studies again at higher. She is mathematically competent and enjoys it.
Edit: Doing Maths, Tech Studies, Biology, Art, English at higher. Plans to do maths advanced higher, physics higher next year (along with some others.)


Bachelors or 4 year and MEng course?

[mike]

pinging Frenchie.... Frenchie to the suspiciously aerodynamic courtesy phone.

My experience was that it was *all* applied maths & physics. 

Do any of the courses run for 3 years with an optional 4th?  She might be fed up with hard sums after 3 and want to go and use her degree to get a job doing something else.

[matthew]

I know the IChemE (Chem Eng) went to the 4 year MEng being the standard requirement for chartership, a BEng requires substantial further courses whilst at work. I expect the IMechE is the same.

*pings Charlotte for confirmation*

Mech eng degrees can lead to a number of industries, I suspect most recruiting graduates will have training schemes designed to lead to chartership which will require an IMechE accreditied course.

[David Martin]

OK, also come across the 'year in industry' and 'Headstart' courses. Some of the Headstart courses fit really well with our summer holidays next year so should be fun.

[Woofage]

I know the IChemE (Chem Eng) went to the 4 year MEng being the standard requirement for chartership, a BEng requires substantial further courses whilst at work. I expect the IMechE is the same.

Correct. MEng is the academic requirement now for CEng of all types AFAIK. Has been since late 90s I think. I got my CEng under the old system.

[David Martin]

My father finally got his CEng after obtaining an MSc from Surrey. His previous 30 years of engineering experience rendered to naught withoutthat bit of paper following a 'harmonisation' process in Europe. One professional body got sniffy (after all he had more real life engineering experience in one hand than the committee had in total) because it was by assessed coursework rather than a written exam. So he got accepted as a fellow at another professional body (there are lots of engineering ones) who promptly granted him his CEng. 
I think he needed it to maintain RegWeldEng or some such where the rules had changed to require a CEng to hold that designation.

[mrcharly-YHT]

OK, also come across the 'year in industry' and 'Headstart' courses. Some of the Headstart courses fit really well with our summer holidays next year so should be fun.

My employers take students on 'year out' gaps. It is really good. They go back to uni with loads of experience and ideas. If they have half a brain and aptitude, then they are almost guaranteed a job after finishing studies.

[Kim]

1) Apart from all the maths you can eat, physics, obviously.  It really wouldn't hurt to have a good working knowledge of operating (basic housekeeping in *nix and Windows, a proficiency in spreadsheet-wrangling, that sort of thing) and programming^[1] computers, either (computer simulation is the bread and butter of engineering these days), though I'm not sure A-level courses are the best way to go about that.  Beyond that, electronics and chemistry are good things to know about for any flavour of engineering.  But it's mostly about the maths.

2) Things to pay attention to are what the research groups are working on, how much maths-envy the conveners of non-mathematical modules have, and what the undergraduate lab facilities are like (computer and physical).

3) Bristol.  Half of YACF can't be wrong   More seriously, "any good redbrick" is the rule of thumb for engineering, then whittle them down based on course specifics and facilities.  Oxbridge are weird.  London is expensive.  Don't apply to anywhere with a shiny new departmental building "opening in September" (sorry Southampton - great course, but I didn't want to spend two years with no labs to speak of and lectures in draughty old rooms round the back of the maths department).


Don't apply for a BEng or BSc course.  Apply for a 4-year MEng (pretty much required for engineering these days anyway), and change later if needed.  It makes the funding simpler.



_{[1] Language doesn't matter.  It's easy to learn a new programming language once you understand the basic concepts of imperative programming.}

[David Martin]

What do you mean by maths-envy?

[Somnolent]

2. Southampton, natch . Bit far for you though. Manchester?

Harumph !
We live near enough to Southampton.... so where is No 1 son off to, to start his MEng on Monday ?
Durham !

 

[mike]

Harumph !
We live near enough to Southampton.... so where is No 1 son off to, to start his MEng on Monday ?
Durham !

 

a fine course. 

[Kim]

What do you mean by maths-envy?

A trend in academic culture to teach loosely mathematical subjects through the medium of pages and pages of mathematical equations, when other - perhaps more appropriate and probably more accessible - methods exist.  There's an unspoken assumption in certain circles that the academic credibility of a subject depends on how much impressive-looking maths is involved.

CS suffers from it chronically, and I'm sure it's just as prevalent in engineering.  Kent's CS department (back when it was good) was almost unique in the low level of mathematics outside of the inherently mathematical modules.  You don't need advanced mathematics to teach computer networking^[1], for example, but some lecturers insist on bringing it in at every opportunity.


_{[1] Something I've studied at degree level in two different institutions with very different cultures.}

[rogerzilla]

Second year Chem Eng had a load of impenetrable process control stuff involving Laplace transforms, and mass transfer involving finite difference equations.  The latter are actually useful (unlike Laplace) but I never grasped either, getting a 2:1 merely by learning the bits of past papers I had a chance with.

It's all redundant these days since controls have largely gone digital rather than pneumatic, and computers do all your packed column calculations for you (assuming you don't just use McCabe-Thiele and the HETP from the packing manufacturer's catalogue, which is close enough for government work).

Anyway, it's a miracle I never dropped out.  I hated it all because of the maths.  I did like tower packings, I suppose, because they reminded me of pasta shapes.  I used metal Intalox saddles for my final year design.

[sas]

Industrial gap years always go down well at interviews. I did the Year in Industry programme which meant I earnt (and saved!) some money, learnt to programme, and got loads of experience. This came in handy for when applying for summer placements/internships, since I had enough experience to work somewhere more interesting than a supermarket.

I can't see why anyone who wants to go into engineering as a career wouldn't do an accredited MEng since it's needed for professional qualifications, and even if you're not bothered everyone else applying for jobs will have it. A few universities including Oxford, Cambridge and Durham do joint engineering courses where the first year is the same for everyone, then in the following years you choose modules depending on your specialisation. It's good if you're not 100% sure of what you want to do.

[mr magnolia]

ingerland will cost you lots more?

Strathclyde graduates in Civil Engineering seem generally goodish.  Cant speak for other pretend branches of engineering.

[barakta]

Not 100% sure how Sheffield works for engineering vs hard sciences or indeed these days but in my day 1999-2004ish most first years had 40-60 credits to play with aside from core degree stuff.  This can be useful to do modules in other areas and certainly they were quite good if people wanted to switch programmes if they could wrangle the appropriate requisites. This seemed to be unusual as no one else I know had such freedom to study what the hell they liked.

As I did first year twice I have first year credits in lots of chemistry (much of which I failed),  information studies, compsci, mat sci (2:1s at same time as chem fails so wtf),  Businessy-management (spit), sociology, German and philosophy which was really helpful to identify where my strengths/weaknesses lay. 

Although I don't think Sheffield is any more rated for Mech Eng than other places and I don't know what rules about changing programmes are like given restricted places - suspect if your daughter is AAB equivalent student then no one cares.

While I don't think STEM subjects are closing down too badly a bit of nosying around institutional websites and facebook for departments to pick up if there's any politics going on wouldn't go amiss these days. 

[David Martin]

Englandshire will be considerably more. The year in industry looks good and there is one Headstart course she can make that fits around other commitments next summer.  Amusingly it is sponsored by various charities that do engineering int he third world and she will be just back from a month in Mongolia when(if) she goes...

[TimO]

... Oxbridge are weird.  London is expensive. ...

True, but both of them also tend to have a very high profile in many science and technical subjects (I haven't got any idea about the fluffier stuff).

Looking at the Wikipedia entry for Academic Ranking of World Universities (for example), the UK universities listed in order are Cambridge, Oxford, UCL, Imperial, Manchester, Edinburgh, King's College London, Bristol, Nottingham, Birmingham and Sheffield.  So, the top four places are Oxbridge or London (with another London university a bit lower down).

Now, how fair, or reasonable these sort of rankings are, is another question, but people (prospective students, their parents, and more importantly in this context, employers) do look at this sort of thing.

Whilst engineering has a lot of maths in it, it's a lot less than something like Physics.  So, if maths is a problem, you probably don't want to look at Physics!  Computer Science is always a bit of a interesting subject, because people think that because they're interested in programming, they should be doing CS, but the maths content is, as has been mentioned, substantial.

[sas]

The year in industry looks good

This might be stating the obvious but if you go down that route don't just apply to a company which is in a relevant area- also find out exactly what the placement would involve. E.g. some will be very technical and hands on, others will be more project management, another could involve looking at process efficiency and working on the shop floor. All should provide good experience, but might not be so enjoyable.

[Panoramix]

On top of the maths, physics and technical knowledge, I found that engineers who were good at drawing (with a pencil) tended to be professionally succesful as it is very useful to be able to convey your ideas efficiently. Also, German is a good foreign language to know as they write a lot of useful technical papers and thesis.

[Kim]

Computer Science is always a bit of a interesting subject, because people think that because they're interested in programming, they should be doing CS, but the maths content is, as has been mentioned, substantial.

Traditionally Kent was the place to go if you're into programming but not maths - their CS course having an unusual emphasis on a hands-on approach to the subject, utilising as many weird and wacky programming languages as possible, rather than the more traditional theoretical approach.  Unfortunately, other than a couple of niche research groups, the department isn't what it used to be.  Terrible shame given its strong history^[1].   

I'd always suggest that those with an interest in 'computer stuff' have a long hard think about subjects like Software Engineering or Computer Systems Engineering (and indeed Electronic Engineering and the multitude of applied courses in a similar vein) as well as straight CS.  As Dijkstra put it, computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.


I'm not dissing the London universities - indeed, I very nearly went to Imperial, but chose Bristol on the basis that anything a simple tube journey from my parents was Too Close For Comfort.  Similarly, if you're based in Scotland, there's a big practical point in favour of Sheffield or Manchester.


_{[1] CS is a bit odd in that it started out - university department wise - as an unpopular branch of mathematics, rather than a spinoff of engineering as you might expect.  As such some of the best, most established universities for CS in its own right are on what might be the 'C' list for engineering, physics or maths - the so-called 'plateglass universities'.}

[Kim]

Also, German is a good foreign language to know as they write a lot of useful technical papers and thesis.

+1 for this.  I studied German at school for the simple reason that it was Not French.  While I'll be the first to claim that I lack the language gene, a basic ability to make sense of technical German has come in useful from time to time.  Not least for decoding Busch & Müller documentation.