A-level choices: engineering-----architecture

I hate the snobbery over Russell groups. When I say my dd is at Surrey people fall silent. Fiw, Surrey was 5th on the table for engineering 3 years ago, one of the reasons she chose it. It's since slid down, no idea why. But at the end of the day she will have a accredited degree and most importantly a job.

There are also some Civil Engineering and Architecture or Structural Engineering and architecture degrees. I expect they need maths.

One point which may be worth considering is that some students find maths more interesting as they get further into it (more maths, less arithmetic) - and as you begin to see what it's useful for.

He is interested in engineering and architecture/design. What about aerodynamic engineering - ending up designing beautiful cars, beautiful cars or even aeroplanes or spacecraft to make them go faster. The Maths needs to be strong as there is lots of modelling using fluid dynamics and wind tunnels.

I'm very impressed by anyone studying engineering as a degree. One of my housemates at Durham studied engineering and it was like a 9-5 job, he'd toddle off to his 39 hours of lectures every morning at 8.30. I think he was a little envious of my friend studying English who had 6 hours of lectures a week, and the rest of us doing science and humanities with a much lighter workload. He went into a banking job after university.

My brother in law studied engineering at Bath and works as a structural engineer. He works harder than anyone I know (often until 3 in the morning) but feels his line of work is very underpaid relative to his skill levels and hours (and he's right).

I'm sure some kids love studying engineering, it is a big commitment relative to other degrees. That said, I'm in awe when my brother in law produces pages of beautiful looking calculations.

Op i asked before
Have you checked he can physics without maths at his school

Bath has one of the best architecture degrees so worth reading their information www.bath.ac.uk/courses/undergraduate-2020/architecture/bsc-architecture-including-placements/#entry-requirements
If he does photography he would have to build up his portfolio of drawing and models independently which would be quite a lot of extra work. As others have said architecture is a high risk profession but for those who have the joint talents of art and physics a very stimulating degree.

Another combination he could consider would be maths physics computer science (instead of chemistry) and DT/ photography.

Ds is doing general at a RG uni and will specialise after common first year. It is very maths focussed. He did maths, physics & art. Lack of further maths ruled him out of several unis but he loves where he is. The best general engineering course is reputed to be Design Engineering at Bristol and whatever they say they're after, they're pretty likely to want maths, further maths, physics + 1 other. As others have said, architecture courses vary, so Bath (no.1 ranked) wants maths and physics but some others e.g. Kingston are much more arty.

A further note re maths - DH was an industrial chemist, he said some of the chemical engineers seemed more like applied mathematicians, they had to do some very complex types of calculations.
DD is specialising in electrical &electronics - some of that's got hard maths too.

DDs doing general engineering- they carry on with a broader range of disciplines for longer before specialising. I'm not sure if all 'gen eng' degrees allow sufficient specialisation to get full accreditation in one branch.

Chemical engineering is (i think) the engineering required to make chemicals at industrial rather than lab scale. When you see a big chemical plant - the chemical engineers are the ones doing all sorts of calculations about fluid flow and heat and doing it safely. I believe some of the same skills are used in industrial food production.
Materials science/engineering is more about the properties of materials - designing and characterising new materials (generally solids used for various structures, small or large).

The guardian tables are overly reliant on things like student satisfaction rather than more objective metrics - they're way off base in my subject.
When he gets further down the line, if he's doing engineering he should check the accreditation of courses he's interested in - there's a big spreadsheet somewhere on the IET website. But that's not something to worry about yet awhile.

Rankings - it's in the top 10 of about all the uk ones (T, ST, Guardian, etc) But we tend to go off the support that students get when on their placement from the uni, and past performance of students. We don't specifically look at rankings as they're tbh not always a good indication of student performance, we have a list of courses that are recommended, and ones that are approved for CEng membership

Some universities eg Birmingham are you stick with the engineering degree that you started on.

I'm not sure that's correct now - this is one of the unis which now does a common first year before they branch off into specialism. (They weren't doing this a few years ago when DD was figuring out where to go, she's a 4th year now)

www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/engineering/courses/undergraduate.aspx

This type of arrangement may suit someone who isn't sure which field to go into but doesn't want to do general engineering as such.

I've somewhat skimmed the thread - have Smallpeice and Headstart been recommended yet to give some more idea on what he wants to do yet op? I don't suppose they'll be running all their usual courses but maybe that will mean there's more available online. Worth a look on their websites anyway.

Seriously, we want students who have some experience of working life, we sponsor and employ from all sorts of universities, especially those with strong links to industry. Most engineering students don't go into research. Most lecturers have had some experience of industry, and can make more money in the private sector. RG means bugger all to us! I can honestly say that I'd never seen so much emphasis placed on RG until I started looking at mumsnet. It may be different in pharmaceutical & electronics, but in the civil/mech sector you really need to think about what your child wants to do. My latest placement student is from a non-RG uni, but top 10, so more highly rated than most RG ones.

RG isn't the be all & end all for engineering.

If he is interested in engineering the arkwright scholarship for 6th form applications start about now

www.arkwright.org.uk/
Its not a huge amount if money but my DS got some great experiences through Arkright

He'll be fine with further maths if he uses eg Khan Academy online for support. EPQ a waste of time for most engineering degrees. Some universities eg Birmingham are you stick with the engineering degree that you started on. Others like Warwick are flexible. Maybe ditch chemistry for double maths? Then he can keep his love of photography

He is at Sheffield
I don’t think there are many if I remember the open day talk there, obviously as he didn’t have further maths Imperial and Cambridge were out.
Can you find out via the ucas website if there are any others?

There were people in my school who went on to study maths - they obviously loved maths for its own sake, got interested in proofs, pure maths, long way sideways from the curriculum.

Then there were those who enjoyed some elements of maths, particularly what it could do. I really liked mechanics and basic "useful" pure maths. Not interested in the more obscure end of pure maths as an art.

Wish I'd had the chance to do more stats, my school didn't do that much even in further maths.

I enjoyed the applied bits of maths as a useful tool. I enjoyed the cleverness of differential equations but was never going to want to do detailed proofs and clever thinking

Good engineering websites :

www.thisisengineering.org.uk/ (follow them on twitter too)

Meet the future you quiz (haven’t done it, but assume it directs you towards particular strands of engineering ) : www.tomorrowsengineers.org.uk/meet-the-future-you-careers-quiz/

I have 2 kids who have done/doing engineering degrees. Both are good at maths, but certainly at 15 i’m not sure they would declared they loved maths.
First one did maths, physics, art. Did mech eng at Russell group, part way through wondered if civil would have been a better fit. Now doing a PhD that would possibly be more aligned to aeronautical.
Second one did maths, physics and biology and an EPQ. He is doing general engineering at a Russell group ( would have liked to apply for general at Cambridge but they required further maths and it hadn’t crossed his mind back in y11)
The general engineering degree is a great option in my mind as they start doing all the different branches so more have much more knowledge about what each of them entails when they finally specialise.