Bath or Sheffield for Engineering? Does Russell Group matter any more?

[Vanta]

My DD has been offered a place at Sheffield for Mechanical Engineering. She has just been rejected from Bath for the same course but Bath offered Integrated Mechanical and Electrical Engineering instead. Which degree do you think is 'better'? Does it actually matter? Bath isn't Russell Group, Sheffield is. You need a slightly lower grade for the Integrated course - is that seen as a 'lesser' course because of that (you still need AAA)? Any insight really appreciated.

That's helpful, thanks @TizerorFizz . It's true; she is slightly concerned about the number of private school kids in Bath compared to Sheff. But she likes a smaller city because she is that kind of gal. I didn't consider comparing the breadth of courses - thanks for flagging that up.

From this, bath seems to have a fair breadth and quite a lot of strengths

www.bath.ac.uk/corporate-information/faculty-of-engineering-designs-rankings-and-reputation/

But maybe not so good on the electrical&electronics ... wonder if that's part of the reason for the integrated course being offered?

Smaller departments just aren’t taking as many so offer other courses.

@Vanta Unless Sheffield has suddenly changed, students live in several areas after y1. Not all over Sheffield. As a result, students don’t feel that it’s a big city. They mostly stick to student areas. Of course there’s football and lots going on in Sheffield but the uni has an active SU and students can stay in a relatively small area. So I’m not convinced size of city makes much difference except for those who wsnt a very active nightlife. There’s bits of Sheffield (lots!) that students don’t go anywhere near. No reason to. As a result, the student area is fairly well contained.

@ErrolTheDragon this is great thank you. I don't know if that course on the list is the exactly the same as Integrated Mechanical and Electrical but yes the requirements are slightly lower at three A grades as opposed to A*AA. It also must be less oversubscribed as Mech because they wouldn't be offering it as an alternative. Thanks for the link!

Sheffield engineering is not currently all it should be. Most of the PP have dc who have finished some time ago. My dc is in final year of their MEng. They have had no practical lab work at all, ever, despite the shiny tours of the undergraduate labs. Pastoral care has been poor ( his dad nearly died last year and was in hospital for ages over his summer exams, they gave him no allowance at all for that).
Sheffield appears to be a decent city, not too expensive and close to the peak district but based on our family experiences and your dc preferring Bath I would go for Bath.

I'm an engineer that graduated from one of these universities l, and recruits from both. Ive also lives in both cities.

In my experience they are equivalently well regarded from an employer perspective. Both are also good at offering industrial placement years which are hugely valuable in informing future career choices, topping up degree finding and making graduates more employable.

There is increasing demand for graduates with skills in both electrical and mechanical engineering, especially in robotics and automated manufacturing. However many graduate schemes will specifically recruit for mechanical or electrical engineers, and so these interfacing degrees can inadvertantly fall through gaps when applying for jobs.

Does she have any interest in electronics? I think that's a pretty deciding factor. If not then she should stick with what she wanted to do all along. It may also be with checking how many girls do the courses in each place - Engineering can sometimes be quite lonely as a woman.

Bath is a beautiful but small and expensive city, with a diverse intake. She should not worry about excess private school intake there. Sheffield is cheaper and larger. For seeing larger bands or bigger night clubs you'd need to go to Bristol from Bath, whereas it's spread there in Sheffield.

@JaffavsCookie How do you know Bath is better if no DC there? How can students pass modules with no lab time? It’s impossible.

@TizerorFizz I don’t know Bath is better, just that the OPs DD prefers it.
There has been no lab time at all, over the entire 4 years. It’s a shit show imo. His older brother also did engineering at a different uni and he chose Sheffield on the basis on the labs and the talks during the open day. It has been a big disappointment for him. He never envisaged an entirely theoretical degree.

@JaffavsCookie What branch of engineering?

@TizerorFizz I feel I am getting into too much personal information online. Feel free to not want to acknowledge it, but I am only offering mine and my son’s experience to the OP

Aww fuck it, if you want to know it was general engineering then he elected to move to a specialty.

... engineering degrees are very significantly applied maths... not sure how much lab work anyone could expect. If you want to hours of lab practicals, study chemistry!

Lab work was always part of engineering degrees for obvious reasons. If I’m honest, I do try and sway young people away from general engineering. Mainly because it’s for those who aren’t sure what type of engineer they are and then would prefer not to be an engineer. It’s difficult to see how Mechanical would not have lab work - which is why I asked. However DD in this case must look at the spec and make sure she gets what’s expected. Engineering should always be about practical application and not just maths. DH spent days in the labs for civils/structural engineering. Engineers need to test the maths solutions or in the real world, they aren’t as useful as they might be.

I take both of your points on board, but having had a previous dc doing mechanical with very little lab work at a different RG uni, when this dc went to the Sheffield open day he was a) swayed by the spiel about doing general to start with and b) about the amount of lab work there would be. The latter point has been a complete lie, and understandably he feels a bit salty about it.

Well...some for sure! My dd did gen eng, specialising after the first couple of years and (in addition to the maths and theory) there was various lab work, at least one group project and then individual final year project - albeit thanks to covid she got less lab time than would normally be the case.

Does she like electrical engineering? My DD went to Edinburgh where, as its 4 years, you do a general engineering year in 1st year of civil, mechanical and electrical. There is very little crossover and you've got to like electrical engineering to do a joint degree in it. She did civil and didn't enjoy electrical at all. That to me would the most important factor over location.

@Devongoddess Yes. Thats the biggest issue really. Does she want what’s been offered from Bath?

@JaffavsCookie I'm so sorry to hear this, you must have been going through a very tough time. I think my DD could go onto the student room or whatever it's called to check if the same situation happens with Mechanical Engineering. They certainly made a big deal of the different labs at Sheffield when she went on the offer holder day. I hope your partner is making a full recovery.

@Devongoddess this is the issue, she has no experience so can't make a judgement if she likes the electrical side or not. She wasn't drawn to it from the outset (which is why she applied to Mechanical) but she loves cars/formula 1 so I think electrics are the future of that industry. She is going to have to do some homework about which modules from Mech Eng are dropped to incorporate them into the Integrated course she has been offered. There is a pretty big overlap which is why, I am guessing, she has been asked to consider this offer.

Electrical engineering is quite different from electric cars though. Cars have always had electrical engineers working on them and now they have some more because of electrical power train. Mechanical engineering is literally the bedrock of automotive engineering, they will not be going anywhere.

I don't know many engineers who like both electrical and mechanical engineering, they are quite different subjects.

I also echo previous pp comments about despite spending my career in engineering in different sectors, I can't remember many Bath engineers. The exception to this is probably civil engineering: their civils course is closely taught with architecture and is very well regarded.

Sheffield has a cracking mech and materials reputation and close industry links. I'd be going there. It's also not a massive city in terms of the centre. The AMRC is a big win as are very close links with Rolls-Royce.

Checking out both degree programmes on TSR is a great idea, OP

@Uncooperativefingers I was going to say that about Bath. Their architecture course is top notch and engineering associated with architecture is their strong point.

I also would not take as gospel what anyone says on an open day. It’s often very general info and doesn’t drill down into the nitty gritty of courses. I think asking existing students is much better.

This is what Sheffield says about its lab sessions for mechanical engineering. It makes no sense for General engineering modules not to have similar access depending on path chosen. However they have 11 engineering streams so maybe choice of stream matters?

Bath is a small university compared to most. Class sizes are much smaller.

Incidentally, I was being slightly flippant in my previous post. There is some practical work in an engineering course, but not "labs" like science graduates tend to do. Maybe half a day a week? Design projects aren't generally lab based. There'll be a lot of computer programming on any engineering course.

A lot of topics are demonstrated "in silico" rather than "in lab" these days. Maybe thats a loss in the discipline - but many engineers will work without getting near what they are designing, these days. The last project I did involved teams from all over the world, most of whom only saw designs on computer screens.

DH has no time for engineers who cannot design in the real world and have never been asked to. It’s utterly shortsighted for engineers not to experiment with design. Labs were an integral part of many engineering courses for hours and hours. I suspect with the expansion of numbers, lab time is strictly allocated. Doesn’t make for better engineers though.