Engineering university choices....pls help

[Canadalife]

Hello..we seek help and advice for lovely DD. My daughter is applying for general engineering this September. She is doing Maths, Further Maths and Physics A levels...predicted grades A,A A...poss Oxford.Definetly not London ie no Imperial. She is considering oxford , Durham, Warwick, Cardiff and Sheffield. Does anyone have any experience with any of these unis/cities, or other unis they’d recommend us looking at for engineering? All help gratefully received.. Thank you .

I googled a few google jobs (which do include electronic eng) ... while they might have minimum qualifications of BEng or equivalent practical experience plus various specific experience they had preferred qualifications MEng plus various specific experience.

I just think that there is an underestimate of the relevence of experience and some employers are more enlightened than others.
Ds did his Headstart at Imperial and they had a talk by a young software engineer from Google. He invited DS to London HQ, which ds took him up on,. I tend to connect google with engineering because of ds experience at Headstart.
Engineering is huge across so many industries and through so many routes, its very narrow minded to say its Chartered or nothing.
DH has been in 3 completely different industries as an electronics engineer. He started off in Clean rooms back in the 70s as a 15 yesr old apprentice making the machines that made semi conductors. Then moved to the marine industry involved on generators /air conditioning and designing control panals. Then moved to the pharmaceuticals because they wanted his clean room experience.

But errol they are not prepared to right someone off because they dont have those qualifications.

Hi, apologies as I've not read the whole thread but thought I'd jump in on the Chartership issue - I'm a chartered structural engineer working for a consultancy and would highly recommend civil or structural engineering as a degree and a career! And would definitely stress the importance of being able to get chartered with whatever degree you get, it is a major stepping stone and will see you up into management and project oversight quicker. However my understanding is that you can now become chartered via the standard route with the institution of structural engineers (but not civils) with a 3 year BEng. Previously it would have taken you an additional 3-5 years and a lot more work. So worth checking, the BEng needs to be accredited though. FWIW we look for graduates with work experience and enthusiasm more than which university (though Oxbridge is usually a winner) - a 4 year MEng is hard work and to have achieved a good result generally shows motivation and intelligence. The work experience and knowledge of the industry is in my view more important - look for internships in university holidays if you can. They are typically paid in engineering which helps.
I went to UCL and loved it, but it was a long time ago! Excellent diverse civils course though.

Where my DH qualified, Civils always came first and Structural Engineering second after Civils. Some Engineers just do structural engineering though these days - as they do in DH's consultancy.

I think, bruffin, you have been totally swayed by one employee from one company. They say they prefer MEng, even at google. Also, it is not Chartered or nothing. Why do you not go onto the web site of the Engineering Council and see what the levels of qualification are and what the affiliated Institutions are? You may be better informed if you do. I'm not sure "Software Engineer" has an Institution at all.

You are unlikely, as a non graduate or not professionally qualified Engineer, to get relevant experience in most professional engieering disciplines. The top "experience" cannot, in some disciplines be given to unqualified people. As butunlikley says, getting qualified matters. Please listen to what people who know the industry from a variety of angles are saying. How is a young person going to get experience that trumps MEng? Or trumps being on a graduate engineer scheme? Or even being on a graduate apprentice scheme? They just will not be able to. Google may want people in their 30s or 40s but that is completely different. Other people who leave school at 16 and get into an engineering company are not professional engineers. They are technians at best and why should they have the same status as highly qualified graduates if they do not have the equivalent qualifications? As I have said, you would never think that was OK for your Doctor?

I think BEng can get Civils but it takes a lot longer! MEng is shorter.

Bubbles I must just correct you.

Nobody is disputing that MEng + graduate training scheme is a secure and straightforward route to becoming a Chartered Engineer which is a standard qualification in all the traditional disciplines. And that is what anyone would recommend to an A level student considering university courses.

However the engineering industry is very diverse and there are different career routes. In our company we do not mandate a one size fits all career although of course we encourage everyone to get the professional qualifications if they can. We have some former apprentices who have gone on to get excellent degrees working very hard alongside their day job, and are now pursuing incorporated or chartered engineer status.

We have recruited experienced engineers who have come from overseas or PhDs or worked previously where there was not a grad training scheme and we mentor them to get Chartered through the experience appraisal route. I am personally mentoring three people on this scheme.

Becoming a Chartered Engineer is a solid career benchmark but you must remember you can do it in your mid 20s with very little actual experience behind you and the skills needed for engineering roles include many other aspects as well.

The majority of engineers probably will be designing HS2 by the way. Its' a bl**dy huge project. In fact we do not have enough engineers in the UK to deliver it; going back to the start, please do encourage your teenagers to look at this career!

Just chipping in to say my DD is having a great time following the apprenticeship route. We started by visiting the skills show here

www.worldskillsuk.org/directions/our-events/worldskills-uk-live

There are apprenticeships at lots of different levels, post gcse and degree apprenticeships. The minimum requirements are just that, entry to some of the schemes is very competitive. There are lots of assessments and interviews to get through.

DD has been working on some really exciting projects and enjoyed saying politely to the design engineer, “I’m not sure that bit is going to work. I’ll try but it will take a while.” Afterwards the design for that little component was changed and the design engineer said to DD, “Please do a degree either at uni or a degree apprenticeship.”

I recently tried to persuade her to go to uni but she insisted that she wants to work in a company and do a PhD. She has just landed herself a position where she can study up to degree and beyond.

She loves being paid and knowing she is combining technical skills and academic knowledge. It won’t suit everyone as it is hard work studying and working. She is very able and always does very well at assessment centres. I sometimes worry she should have done uni but she is ambitious and capable and has a very clear path in her mind.

@BubblesBuddy I'm afraid I disagree. I did a year in an engineering office before I did my MEng and without doubt the year in industry was more useful on a day to day basis than any of my MEng training. And more useful in getting me a job as it set me apart from other grads.
I would likely hire someone with a BEng and work experience above an MEng candidate with none (given only the choice of two!), particularly now the structures institution will let you attain chartership with a 3 year degrees. Not least because until you work in engineering, you don't really know if you love it in my experience - the degree is so different from practice. We've had several excellent MEngs just decide it's not for them. Salary probably plays a part... It's easy to get lured away!

I didn’t say Work experience was not useful but Structural Engineering is fairly niche and as DH is FIStructE and FICE and FCIHT plus he’s the founder of a medium size consultancy which has been grown from him and a partner over the past 38 years, we do have some experience of hiring graduate engineers.

I have tried to say that getting Chartered is the gold standard. I know there are other routes. Just because IStructE is open to all doesn’t mean it’s necessarily desirable to have a 3 year degree. A 3 year degree can easily mean no work experience at all and much lower A level results. It depends on each candidate. I am talking about graduate engineers here. Not 5 years down the line. Often a short period of work experience prior to a degree is pretty basic.

When DH did his structures exam you took in a suitcase load of books and produced your design and calcs in a day at the Institution. It had a very high failure rate. You needed decent experience pass it. So having your own consultancy for a year or two worked well in that regard. Chartered at 24. Not even sure that’s possible now.

DH likes the degrees with a year in industry too as these grads can hit the ground running and be profitable more quickly. He has young people who have done their year in industry with them so of course they like them and offer them jobs if they are good enough. However as they are much broader than Structures they are looking for a wider spectrum of candidates. There is an increasing importance to know about environmental engineering for example.

Many grad engineers will get work very easily and, as I have said very often, the best engineers are born rather than made! The ones who don’t like it are generally too slow, repeat mistakes and just don’t get it in the work environment. Others just leave university and go into Finance and never work as engineers at all. I’m not sure we disagree all that much!

I suspect we probably agree @BubblesBuddy I'm just not expressing myself very well using 'work experience' as a phrase. I mean a demonstrable period of working in the industry and having enjoyed it enough to pursue the career! Not a week at a desk. One could argue that sticking with an MEng shows the same level of commitment but unfortunately you're right and structures is quite niche, so the degree often doesn't reflect practice.

The structures exam is still the same, basically an awful 8 hours, but shhhh we don't tell potential engineers until it's too late for them to back out 😉

It's funny how a lot of posters on here talk about their DH being engineers and the experience level and what is needed etc as if they have experienced it themselves and there are no other opinions...

Come on women with engineering degrees, speak up...

Well if you have been part of DH life (and business life) for 40 years you do get to know every minute detail of it. Obviously that length of experience is worth passing on even if it’s not direct experience.

You will find that women in engineering is a relatively modern change to career choices. We cannot change the past but everyone supports women in engineering now. So they need to push forward. There are opportunities to do great things.

I just wanted to correct something from earlier. The OP has a very bright DD. Therefore advice for her would be different from a DC with lower anticipated grades. Of course Incorporated Engineers are valuable as are technicians but for the best and brightest who are looking at Oxford, going for a lesser qualification doesn’t make sense. Keeping the women in engineering is the challenge. City companies pay more for the brightest MEng grads. They are very employable.

I’m a chartered engineer working in the industry and I recruit graduates. I would definitely recommend doing an MEng if possible and definitely recommend aiming for chartership. It demonstrates knowledge, persistence, well rounded experience..

A schoolmate enjoyed engineering at oxford very much.

Interestingly he held off getting chartered as he was very unsure at that point if he wanted to stay in engineering and reckoned the jobs that resulted (generally where he was asked to do things a chartered engineer couldn't) paid better.

I’ve been teaching engineering in a university for nearly 30 years and worked in industry before that. Anyone seriously intending to pursue an engineering career should follow a path that leads to chartered status. Many doors will still be open for other routes, but not all. My opinion, but I follow the careers of many graduates. It’s not impossible to have an engineering career with lower qualifications but it’s much more difficult to get that career started, especially if your sector is in a downturn when you graduate.

Adding to my earlier comment, I really don’t look much at the university someone went to, so long as the course is accredited by the ICE. Graduate engineers who want to work in contracting are not that common, so we can’t be too picky!

Hi, I’m an 18 year old who just received their A level results. I didn’t do as well as I hoped but I have an offer from John Moores Liverpool uni to do a BEng in Civil Eng. Not sure whether to take the offer or retake my A levels? I had hoped to go to Sheffield or Leeds. I’m worried about employability at the end of the course, and whether it would be better to get a better maths grade before starting.(I’m on my mum’s account)

Marshall
My ds redid his physics and further maths and got good offers for engineering. In fact Southampton gave him a better offer than the year before. He ended up at Surrey

Hi Bruffin,
I’ve got CCC at the moment, I would have to get AAB next year. Because of the change in the A level syllabus, no local schools are offering resits so I’d have to rely on a bit of tuition.
Since I posted last Newcastle have offered me a BEng course . I know I’d have to work really hard to catch up if I take it

Ds had ACD, good luck whatever you do.

Hi Marshall - I guess it depends whether you think there were reasons why you didn't get the grades you hoped for this year and if improving from CCC to AAB is realistic.

Newcastle is a good solid uni for engineering... would you necessarily get offers next year from somewhere like that if reapplying with your current grades and the hope of resits? If your believe your real potential is at the AAB level then arguably it might be better to put the hard work in at Newcastle rather than on resitting A levels.

It's not an easy decision - best wishes whatever you decide to do.

I’m worried I won’t cope with the maths if I go to a ‘better ‘ university Bruffin.
I’ve carried on working through the summer. There was a problem with teachers and we were only taught 4/6 units but I’ve worked through the Summer

Maths really is the key to success in the early stages of an engineering degree. If you go in aware that that is a weak area and make use of all the support you are offered in maths then you have a good chance. Students often fail because they don’t admit they have a problem until it’s too late. So often I hear “I didn’t go to tutorials because I couldn’t do the questions” which is not sensible. There will be help available but it won’t be forced on you, you need to go out and engage with it. Go to lectures, ask the lecturers for help, go to their office hours, go to tutorials engage with the work.

Newcastle is a great University . Totally agree with Chemenger - take advantage of all the support that will be offered to you. It will be there - and you seem realistic about how hard you have to work. Very best of luck with your decision.

You should ask if it would be possible to transfer to the MEng if you do well in first year.