Engineering at Durham?

[nittygritt]

DS is in year 12. He is interested in doing an engineering Meng and is currently looking at civil engineering (but he has changed his mind between that and mech eng a couple of times). He has mentioned Durham, among others, because I think he has picked up from school conversations that it is a prestigious uni. However, the Times ranks it 24 in the UK (world rank 201-250) for civil engineering. QS and the Guardian don't rank it for civil engineering at all, but maybe that's a quirk of the ranking systems. Thoughts?

He also has Imperial, UCL and Nottingham on his list, which I'm happy with - it's just Durham I'm not sure about.

i take it that he has very high predicted grades?

They get predicted grades at the end of year 12, but he's on track for the grade requirements at all the mentioned uni's.

Durham offers a general engineering MEng rather than Civil, I wonder if that’s why it’s lower in the rankings for Civil? DC has applied and I was really impressed with it at the open day.

We looked round several for mechanical engineering and DC wasn’t keen on Durham - and as pp says it’s a general engineering degree. It didn’t have anywhere near as good facilities as say Leeds or Sheffield (although I believe it may have been upgraded since then - we looked round 6+ years ago and the labs reminded me of my old chemistry labs at school with wooden benches etc). DC has since graduated from elsewhere and in their first graduate job they were with a Durham graduate - very bright and good at the job, but they had a much steeper learning curve as their degree had not been as practical.

A lot further south but DD graduated with MEng in civil engineering from Bath in 2022. It was impacted by covid but she enjoyed it there, rated the tutors and opportunities they had, and waltzed into a fabulous job as an ICE Quest scholar. If your DS does decide on civil engineering, the ICE Quest scholarship is worth up to £10k and is worth a look.

@tizerorfizz is the MN expert on Civ Eng. This is a good question for her

As others have said, it only offers general engineering not specific disciplines. And if you look in the rankings for that it doesn't seem well rated for that either.

Fwiw when my dd was looking at unis mostly for electrical/electronic she did also look into some which only offered general engineering and was distinctly unimpressed by what Durham was offering. The only place she was convinced could deliver on 'generalise then specialise' was Cambridge. Which was where she went and is now enjoying life as an electronics design engineer, but I think quite a large chunk of them specialise in civil/structural.

@poetryandwine

@nittygritt I would query Durham too. The league tables are not wrong. It’s a general course and quite a few grads won’t become engineers at all.

I know a bit more about civil and structural engineering as DH had his own mid size consultancy for many years. Quite often, the “best” unis for Civil Engineering are the “red brick” universities. The Complete University guide gives a pretty good table of very good universities if you exclude Oxbridge who also offer general engineering. Plus there are some great newer unis such as Surrey, Loughborough and Bath which should be considered.

Is he desperate for London? Do you live there? Clearly very different to Nottingham. I would add Sheffield, Bristol, Bath, Leeds, Manchester and Southampton - but many more are excellent. Imperial and UCL will be more expensive for living costs for 4 years.

Employers really like switched on grads with practical skills and an understanding of engineering concepts used by civil engineers. It’s better to spend 4 years covering a majority of topics for civil/structural engineering rather than covering these topics too thinly. Hence Durham is no advantage.

I would say similar for mechanical engineering. What does he like about engineering? Does he enjoy the built environment? There’s lots of work now for environmental engineers and that’s definitely something to look at. No uni at the highest tariffs is a poor uni. He will get work but there are other things to consider such as ethos, location and costs. Hope that helps.

Thanks @TizerorFizz We do live in Greater London, and his older brother (always his role model) is at a London uni doing maths. DS2 likes his comfort zone, so would need an attractive reason to go further afield - he has visited Nottingham and Durham in the past, so they're familiar, and good for his sport. We have a few months to visit more options - the other unis you mentioned are on a list I've prepared to help him.

If a general first year appeals perhaps Warwick might be an option?

It’s fairly normal to have year 1 as a general introduction these days. Warwick isn’t unusual in this.

Durham has a good general reputation but not particularly reputable for Engineering. Bath, Bristol etc are better.

You could also look at Southampton and Newcastle, the latter has a general first year.

Thank you for starting this thread @nittygritt I have a DD in yr12 also interested in engineering. The thoughtful responses you are getting are really helpful.

Just to throw into the ring - an apprenticeship is a fantastic way to get into a civil engineering career and many companies will take you right up to degree level now. You get hands on experience from the very start - and most importantly, paid!

There was another thread on civil engineering today as well so that's worth a look at.

(Did an apprenticeship so am biased! 😂)

Be slightly careful with apprenticeships. DC need to know the difference between Incorporated Engineers and Chartered Engineers. You are merely a graduate engineer without further CPD from an accredited provider. MEng in the quick route being Chartered. A BEng requires a further masters degree to get on the Chartered pathway. Most apprenticeships are BEng and the slow route to being Chartered.

We throw the word “engineer” around without understanding anything about the qualification process and different levels of qualification. A student who can get to a top class uni for MEng should compare what an apprenticeship offers because it might not be comparable. Earnings could well be higher much more quickly with the faster route to qualification. But it’s up to individuals to decide.

In addition to what @TizerorFizz said - I can't speak for all companies but I know some do support further career progression. My EngTech qualification and ICE membership was supported, arranged, and paid for by my company. My cohort have been supported to level 6 and beyond but we started and finished before they changed the programme slightly.

My experience is in civil engineering though, at site level via apprenticeship. Worth weighing up is the practical experience you get via the apprenticeship route - you are hands on from very early on in the process, which gives you a few years more experience than graduates have by the time they land a role in the industry though many do site placements over the summer etc.

A company taking on a MEng grad really should be offering CPD leading to Chartered status.Or what’s the point of being employed by them? Experience can be gained fairly quickly if the company has the right combination of work and learning. IEng (the old TEng) isn’t the same. There are different levels of qualification that anyone going into engineering needs to understand.

"though many do site placements over the summer etc."

@bogoblin@TizerorFizz I do wonder about this. My older son (doing maths, not engineering) found that summer internships are as rare as hen's teeth for all but penultimate-year students. I've had a look on several engineering company websites and they follow the same pattern. Companies use penultimate year internships as part of their recruitment process and don't seem interested in offering summer jobs to other students. So a 4-year MEng student might not get any relevant work experience until the summer between year 3 and 4. Of course they can try to find temping/casual work, but it's much more difficult to get something relevant or impressive that way. Am I missing something?

In contrast, a former apprentice with heaps of experience and a BEng could presumably sign up for a masters relatively easily, even if self-funded.

Am I missing something?

It would seem you are. Firstly, Maths is very different to engineering I would think. Sciences may be somewhere between the two ... DH was a research manager in industry, they simply didn't have roles for interns. My group of scientific software developers does have interns - 3 or 6 months, all with relevant masters or PhDs! It's too specialised for mutual benefit with undergrads.

When dd was doing her MEng it was actually a course requirement that they'd completed a certain number of weeks of relevant internship before progressing to their third year. It was somewhat harder to find these in the first summer but seemed fine in the second. In the event she did a full 12 weeks in her first summer with a big company (well... 11, they had to include a weeks paid holiday in that length) and then 8 in her second year with a small one. Then the third was the summer of 2020 and the second employer asked her to intern for them again working from home and ultimately offered her a job. (Had things been normal she'd probably have done less interning and done some travelling in that last summer). Her pals all found suitable places too.

When she was looking for internships, they were not all advertised on company websites. The university had a list of companies (national and local to the university), and the students also contacted companies and uni research groups themselves. You'd have definitely heard of the company she did her first summer with but not the second one, nor many of the companies her pals found internships with. You're not seeing the full landscape.

Apprenticeships suit some youngsters, uni with internships and then work (which may or may not be explicitly a graduate program) work for others.

My DS did an MEng in a different engineering discipline, and also found summer placements very hard to come by.

The plus side of an MEng is that you get a masters level qualification as part of your undergrad degree and the funding is more straightforward - same fees for your 4th / 5th year and you get the maintenance loans. Fees for some Masters can be high and I think you just get a single loan for fees and living costs of around £12k.

The downside is that (in my experience) that final Masters year of an MEng (2 semesters) is not as comprehensive as a 1 year MSc which typically comprises 6 months taught / 6 months dissertation, so a full calendar year of study.

Another benefit to a separate Masters is you can choose one with a speciality, such as structural, environmental, geotechnical, renewables, water, transport etc.

A separate Masters does mean a year out of your career (if you work for a few years to save up) or delaying work for a year if you go straight on from undergrad study, although some courses allow you to do it part time over 2 years.

When she was looking for internships, they were not all advertised on company websites. The university had a list of companies (national and local to the university), and the students also contacted companies and uni research groups themselves. You'd have definitely heard of the company she did her first summer with but not the second one, nor many of the companies her pals found internships with. You're not seeing the full landscape.

Thanks @ErrolTheDragon . This is reassuring. I otherwise don't (yet) know how different it will be to maths. DS1 has listed many dozens of relevant penultimate year internship opportunities in finance, analytics, data science etc, but last year he only found a small handful for Year 1 (which were obviously very competitive as he didn't get one, despite strong credentials).

ICE Quest scholarship includes an 8 week fully paid summer placement each year with all expenses covered. And a guaranteed job after graduation!

Thanks. We'll look at the eligibility criteria for that. Are they targeted towards disadvantaged/minority groups? It doesn't say so on the front page, but perhaps the individual corporate sponsors have additional criteria.

DDs first internship was connected to an IET scholarship, come to think. That definitely helped ... she said filling in the form for the scholarship was of itself probably one of the most lucrative ways she'll ever spend an afternoon so do encourage your youngsters to be aware of what's available and apply. I think they tend to have applications in the summer before uni or maybe the first term.

(If anyone is reading this thread out of interest because they've got a younger budding engineer do look at Arkwright scholarships, they're awarded in the gcse year. They do involve more effort but they're very worthwhile).