MEng/ BEng is it better to choose a course with a year in industry?

[Tr3hern3]

Ate job prospects better than the degrees without?

No. Job prospects are good for MEng students. They will also get chartered much quicker so fast track to a higher salary quicker. MEng and year in industry might be good but it’s 5 years. BEng people without masters typically become Incorporated engineers these days. It’s a professional qualification but the rung below chartered so prospects are limited in many companies.

The majority don't do an industry year AFAIK, but most will do industry related internships during some or all of their summer vacs anyway. It was a course requirement for DD's MEng that did that they did a certain number of weeks. She got experience with a large and a small company and is now working for the latter.
As far as I can see, it's fine either way, up to the student if they want to do it or not. If they do fancy it then they need to check up when they're picking courses on what the industry links are like for the various unis, whether they get help fining the placements and what happens if they can't find one that suits them (my guess is they default back to just doing the standard degree).

My DD opted for a degree that was 4 years MEng plus a year in industry - but she decided not to do the year in industry. Some of her course friends did. It is up to the student to find the job although her university offered help and also it means you cannot make a decision on whether or not to sign up for a house for the following year as often the offers can be quite late. She decided 4 years was long enough and would not have fancied going back for another year. She did get offered a graduate scheme and those on her scheme are a mixture of ones who did a placement year and ones who didn’t.

I think there are loads of jobs for engineers so whichever the person prefers.

Everyone I work with who was in the graduate scheme did a year in industry. We all got offered jobs with the company we did a placement with. To me it’s a no brainer. You get great experience and focuses your final year. All things being equal, would you employ an MEng without experience or one with?

I suppose it's the case that employers which actually offer year long placements to students think they're a good idea and are likely to offer jobs to their students, but that employers who don't offer any/many placements really aren't bothered?

For some, perhaps the flip side of 'All things being equal, would you employ an MEng without experience or one with?' might be, 'do we want to employ (even at lower pay) someone who has only done part of their engineering degree versus an MEng? '

DP did a 5 year MEng with Industrial Placement. As PP mentioned, having the MEng qualification means that he has been fast tracked to Chartered status as he already meets some of the requirements for Chartership, and is on a significantly higher salary already compared to his friends who did a BEng.

He did his industrial placement with a well known company and was offered a place on their graduate scheme, but ultimately didn’t accept the offer as he realised during his placement that it wasn’t the sector he wanted to work in for the rest of his life, and also didn’t like working for such a big organisation. I think that is actually one of the benefits of doing a course with a placement year - it gives you the opportunity to work out what kind of working environment/sector is best for you so you are more prepared when applying for graduate jobs.

Lots of smaller consultancies, for example, won’t be able to offer a year “in industry” to students. They don’t have the spare capacity to train someone who might not work for them. Larger companies are geared up to do this but do not necessarily recruit from these young people. They want a much bigger pool of applicants if possible from a variety of backgrounds and universities.

The fortunes of businesses change too. Some years there are more grad vacancies than others in smaller businesses. It also depends on what the grad wants. Some posters DC have rejected the bigger companies that put resources into their training and smaller companies might not be able to afford that.

Links with industry isn’t vital for a job in my view. DH’s company rarely has a student but recruits grads. Some of whom have relevant work experience and some don’t. Usually it’s BEng that do from ex polytechnics. They have often had to find their own placements and it can be hard. However after a year there’s no difference in ability! The ones with work experience as a student are not necessarily better because the work wasn’t of the level required after graduation.

Just following on from what TizerorFizz says, sometimes having a year in industry during a degree shows you what you don't want to do too! DD did a fairly practical STEM degree first which included the equivalent of chartered qualification (not engineering) and her year in industry made her realise that actually she wanted to do more theoretical research, which is the field she has since moved into. It was much better to discover that during her studies than if she had gone into it full-time and only realised later.

I did an MEng (a fair few years ago...!) You didn't have to do a year in industry, but you did have to have X no of weeks of industry experience. Effectively this meant that you either had to do a year in industry OR work most of your summer vacations in industry. You should check for that kind of requirement whne making your choices.

I did the year in industry and used the vacations more for travelling etc.

My DS did an MEng in mechanical engineering and graduated with honours. He opted not to do the year's placement as four years was a long enough course to do without a years work inbetween making it even longer and he really regretted it as he got knocked back for so many interviews and graduate jobs and the feedback was they preferred someone with 'experience'. He did a piece for the uni that he went to showcasing success stories and they asked one piece of advice he would give prospective students and his advice was to do a placement.

He's on a fantastic grad scheme now though

With Covid, it seems at least some of the industrial placements were cancelled - DC had hoped to get a 6 month paid placement rather than the in-house research project but that wasn’t an option last year.

Was still offered several grad jobs and settled on one that has great opportunities for career advancement, interesting research and opportunity to travel, and the company is sponsoring him to get chartered.

All MEng grads should be joining companies who are registered to provide the training and supervision for them to become chartered. I don’t think anyone can really do it themselves. The employer has a central role.

It is not true to say that MEng grads need the year in industry. Few truly want to spend 5 years doing this. Most MEng grads get a job without a year in industry. It’s up to them to get work experience to enhance their cv. There are holidays for this! Most companies don’t decide purely on a year in industry or not. Selection tests and interviews are definitely are more nuanced than this. However it’s probably also true that some companies only recruit from their students but that seems very narrow. Very many possible recruits are never seen!

BEng might be better off doing a year in industry but swapping over to masters is also a good shout.

Selection tests and interviews are definitely are more nuanced than this.

Many larger companies are screening heavily with online tests. The algorithms are hard to fathom - you can score 100% on the technical side and computer still says no.

Friend’s DC (Cambridge) got rejected for everything until he “accidentally” ticked the diversity box.