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.

While engineering is still one of the better options for job prospects, it is important to bear in mind that it is a lot more challenging to find internships and graduate positions now than it was five years ago.

Graduate vacancies across England were down around 40% compared to 2018. In London, the number of graduate role posted has fallen 50% in the past five years. https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-06-reed-jobs-report-graduates-face-worst-market-in-five-years/

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.

The latter may be the case - DDs sponsor company had a target of 50% female, which in her field (electrical/electronic) is an even more ridiculously small minority than in the other branches.

Thanks @ErrolTheDragon , 50% female is fine by me, and good for the profession, as well as the working culture. It's when attractive opportunities are 100% female (or another characteristic DS doesn't qualify for) that doors feel closed, though I understand why it's done.

A friend’s DC wasn’t getting through the initial online job screening process until they started “accidentally” ticking one of the diversity boxes - then the application process magically opened up.

This type of screening really depends on where you target applications. There are still many engineering companies who will take people who are just about breathing! That’s a joke - but employers are short of decent candidates and it’s still a profession that’s needing better quality grads and more of them. EU engineers are not around as they used to be. Decent engineering grads won’t have difficulty getting a job. Decent engineering grads also go off and work in the City. So an expensive uni course doesn’t always provide engineers.

Which brings me on to work experience. Yes: try and find it. You don’t need household names though. Look at local consulting engineers. Often you won’t have heard of them. Look at contractors. Also do make sure an employer is registered for training so the grad can actually get qualified. A job isn’t worth much if you can never get your professional qualification. Experience at a non registered employer is not worth as much as experience with a registered one. So check. Quality assurance comes with a registered one too. Registered with the relevant institute.

Masters with a bit of extra learning is neither here nor there if dc has chosen options wisely on MEng and employer. Academic engineers might be bothered but few others will unless they are very niche. Also often the brighter dc do MEng. Masters tend to be later in a career when dc cannot get chartered without it.

Masters tend to be later in a career when dc cannot get chartered without it.

When dd was doing open days, it seemed that quite a high proportion of separate masters were mostly overseas students 'topping up'.

Re looking at local consulting engineers (or other local engineering companies) - absolutely, and I think this is where location of the uni may be somewhat relevant as they are more likely to have contacts locally. DDs uni is in a hot location for electronics design companies.

Masters can also be for particular Civ Eng specialisations - my own masters covers a lot more than the relevant MEng modules, which are a bit basic in comparison.

Plus there are other specialist MScs that can lead on from an engineering BEng that aren’t available at undergrad level.

Yes. There are but a good employer will work with what the grad engineer has to offer: as long as it’s good enough and they are fulfilling most requirements. Clearly they are not experts, but that can come later. The name of the game is to get chartered and loads of engineers are now MEng qualified and work into a specialism. The day of the all round civil/structural engineer had probably gone and environmental engineering is definitely getting attention. With a good MEng degree though, you can progress and most top drawer students now do these degrees.