Engineering Degree

[MEgirl]

DCs in Year 11 and we've started to look at options. Went to look at Warwick today and came away underwhelmed by the engineering school though they quite liked the actual campus. Both are interested in the possibility of Imperial or UCL. I, on the other hand, would quite like them to go somewhere out of London to have the experience of living away from home. I also think that it would be a benefit if they went to different Uni's. One of them is very in to martial arts and the other wants to take it up again so that may be a factor in their decisions.

As I went to Uni overseas I have no experience of UK Uni's though DH went to Brunel. What other places are worth taking a look at? There is so much information and I'm slowly wading through it together with the DCs but suggestions and experience are very helpful.

Thank you SOOOO much, everybody. This thread is just so helpful.

Bloody hell, my DS would love to be an aeronautical engineer. He is obsessed with aircraft, history and the history of aircraft

He is yr 10 at the moment...doing well in Maths, English, Core Science (not offered triple sciences at our school) and History. Geography not so much, Languages not so much. He joined the ATC so he could be near some aeroplanes...

If you can afford it, these course are excellent for wannabe engineers

The Smallpeice Trust

I'm so pleased that this thread is helpful. But for me, I feel I am only repaying the great advice I got from here when my DS were younger, including one amazing MNer who helped my DS get work experience

I'm biased but I'd always suggest checking out Southampton
if nothing else because the faculty has so many sections that you can always specialise in ways you'd never thought of at the start
www.southampton.ac.uk/engineering/undergraduate/index.page?

I agree with chemenger that Chemical Engineers are the best . Apparently we also get paid the most possibly because so many end up as bankers.

The fields you can end up in as a chemical engineer are very diverse - the old-school stuff such as petroleum and energy, food and drink, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, commodities, nappies , personal care products..... anything that has a chemical process involved. When I worked as an engineer, I loved it.

Chemical engineering graduates have the highest starting salaries after dentists, and we never have to put our hands in other people's mouths. According to the IChemE the median salary for new chemical engineers is £30 000, my feeling is that most MEng starting salaries for our students, (who mostly go into oil and gas) are higher than this, some very much higher.

I am very happy to say that we have a very small number of graduates going into banking, never more than one or two a year. From our department almost all graduates go out and do chemical engineering, I like to think this is because we inspire them but I think it is more to do with geography.

Waves to Zhx3

My DD is at Loughborough ( Product Design but has elements of it in her course) she has friends who do engineering and they speak very highly of the courses there.

On another note the campus life there is amazing. Great sporting facilities and social events- comes out as one of the top unis for student satisfaction apparently.

Once she had seen Loughborough there was nowhere else she really wanted to go. It has a great feel about the place.

I also really like the way they supported the freshers when they first arrived. It all seemed really well organised.

Once she had seen Loughborough there was nowhere else she really wanted to go. It has a great feel about the place.

This is exactly why it is so important to visit a university - feeling that you will be happy there is so important.

I should add to my last message that for every student who loves a university there is one who hates it. I'm not a fan of campus universities so Loughborough does nothing for me (although their engineering programmes are very good).

I did Civil Engineering in Bath and loved it. I'd applied to Bath and Bristol but Bath is a nicer experience I think.

I would also suggest Civil Engineers look at Sheffield. It is a highly rated course.

DH is also a Structural Engineer which is a branch of Civils with its own qualification (MIStructE) and they are a fairly rare breed of Engineer. They are much more concerned with buildings than Civil Engineers, and can get involved with advising on the structures of very old properties as well as making new ones, like The Shard, stand up! If anyone is interested in the engineering of buildings, but does not want to be an architect, choose a Civils course with good structural engineering content.

There are now Civils courses with Environmental Engineering content too which, after the rain last year, is an in demand discipline! Engineers who are highly qualified are sought after. DH is struggling to get the right people at the moment! Also, most people love the University they went to, but that does not make it right for someone else. It is a personal choice but the quality of the course and the employability of the students is important. And....yes, loads of them go into city firms and never qualify as engineers at all.

So far my son in his first year mech eng course in Scotland has said his advanced higher technological studies is the subject that has helped him most because it covered electronics and a lot of engineering systems like pistons etc. He only did AH maths not applied maths because he loved tech so much and did AH physics. He also did higher computing and that has been very helpful as you use a lot of computer programmes and software on the course. When we enquired English universities seemed more keen on Further/ applied maths than Scottish ones. Maybe that's because the extra first year of a Scottish degree covers a lot of the applied maths. If you're paying tuition fees in Scotland you only have to pay for 4 years not 5, some English students miss out the first year of Scottish degrees.
Schools won't tell you which A levels you need for what course you have to find out for yourselves but if you have a computer it's fairly easy.

DS got offers from Southampton, Leeds, Sheffield, Nottingham and Cardiff.he didn't like Southampton at when we went to visit.They didn't make the tiniest bit of effort and didn't show them round relevant things
Sheffield and Leeds were the best and in the end he decided on Leeds

When did he get offers itsaknockout? This year or last? Wondering when they decide.