Universities with good industrial links engineering

[Mountain9]

DC has started looking at universities for engineering; currently in year 12.

We are wondering what are the universities with good industrial links and employability? Also nice, happy, safe atmosphere?

Oh, and Sheffield degree educated DH has worked in Poland, Switzerland, Portugal, South Korea, India, the USA and China.

@RampantIvy Its amazing how far one can go!

Engineering is one of the most portable degrees. DS’s classmates are now working around the world. Like the sound of working in South Korea!

Strathclyde offers a semester or year abroad at DTU, Copenhagen as well as several other respected unis in Europe. Lots of the students get internships and some good real life links for engineering projects. Look at the Engineering faculty for Mech, Electronics etc but also DMEM faculty (Design Manufacturing and Engineering Management) which is where the product design engineering course is based. Crucially, the MEng course meets the education requirements for chartered engineer status later which is worth considering with any course you look at. Glasgow is a fantastic university to live in.

I meant of course that Glasgow is a great city to live in!

A friend of DDs at Bristol did a year at a Grande Ecole in France for mechanical engineering. He had to have good enough French and worked at that as he didn’t have A level French or a French family. That was an amazing opportunity. Now works in France but qualified as a chartered engineer here.

Just to reiterate: an engineering degree is the gateway to a career in engineering. It’s not the final qualification. Experience and getting Chsrtered makes you marketable. A year abroad can help because it makes the applicant different from the rest. Many unis offer this but you won’t get to a grande Ecole unless you work like mad at French! And be pretty bright!

DH used to interview applicants at work. He said that they disregarded where the degree was achieved.

I wonder why some companies are so keen to sponsor and recruit at some specific Universities. It seems that some employers do care?

I do final round interviews for graduate recruitment in London and Canada - a global corporate finance organisation. We recruit blind so I’ve no visibility of where the candidates went to school or Uni. It’s irrelevant.

It’s not entirely irrelevant. You would have available other info on applicants! A level results for example. Lower grades clearly demonstrate not a top uni. DH always set selection tests. It certainly wasn’t always the academic high achievers who were the best engineers and the best problem solvers. University is partially relevant but many companies don’t get a massive number of applicants anyway. Not all recruiters are huge companies. Plus written English, ability to explain concepts and working on real projects without spoon feeding with info not readily available in the real world make a big difference. University courses that prep dc for work are always the best.

Are they? I think there's some where the links may be geographical/historical. And there's some specific things like not every uni has the facilities to do high voltage power engineering or suchlike.

Agree. My DH sometimes jokes that he feels like he is at someone else's University reunion when he is at work, as such a high percentage of his colleagues are graduates of the same course. It's mainly because people who came to the city as students and wanted to stay are attracted to work for a local company, or they've done placements/holiday jobs as students and enjoyed it. The company doesn't actually favour that particular University.
There are lots of reasons why you might get a tendency of graduates from the same University working in the same place without it meaning that the company believe a particular place is superior and a lot of it is logistics. Let's face it, if you were running an engineering company on the South Coast you'd be more likely to send someone to a recruitment fair at Southampton than Strathclyde and vice versa if you were looking for grads in Glasgow.

Strathclyde has good links I think?

DH and I met here and did the same quite a specialist degree, the placements and industry links were excellent.

If a MEng is 5 years in Scotland, that might not be a great idea these days. 4 in the rest of the uk makes more sense financially,

@TizerorFizz, as has been pointed out to you on several occasions, Strathclyde has the option of Year 2 entry for those with A-level Maths and Physics (AstarAA-AAB).

English students in Scotland get one year's tuition fees free if they do the full course and Strathclyde has some pretty generous accommodation bursaries for English students in the first year. My son currently has offers from Loughborough and Strathclyde and for us, by the time you consider travel (we live a lot nearer Glasgow) it wouldn't cost a great deal more for him to spend 5 years at Strathclyde compared to 4 in Loughborough. Not enough for me to try to influence his decision on financial grounds anyway. Over a lifetime I don't think the difference in cost will have that much impact so as far as I'm concerned he can pick whichever he prefers. I appreciate that I'm fortunate to be able to absorb the cost quite easily though and it may indeed be a significant issue for others. But the extra year is less expensive than might first be thought.

@JocelynBurnell Also it’s been pointed out not everyone gets into the second year and accommodation costs, if you need 5 years in Scotland, makes it more money to find for no gain.