Imperial MEng with year abroad - questions

[sproocedup]

My son has an Imperial MEng offer, with the final year at an institution abroad. However, looking at the listed options (below), I assume only the final 3 of them would be taught in English. He'd be very happy with any of those three, but I'm wondering if places will be very limited, and competitive. Anyone know?

For any non-English option he'd have to speak the language to "level 4 (independent user)" which probably rules out all the others, unless he decides to build on his GCSE Spanish alongside his degree.

He'd need to be a lot better than GCSE level TBH.

I’m sure I’ve seen someone post on past Engineering threads that a year in industry isn’t needed for most MEng as the internships over the Summer should provide enough experience?

delft and the ETH teach a lot in English.

On the imperial MEng, ask questions about numbers of international students. It used to be incredibly high, which may not be the university experience he’s looking for.

I’ve heard similar but for a different course. DF’s DS went last year. All of the home students did they, they went home each day and only really the international students were in halls.

Yes, GCSE is only level 2. That's why I said he'd need to build on it to get to level 4.

*did that

It isn't a year in industry, it's a year studying abroad. It's the final year of a four year MEng.

Ask the university.

Many European universities teach some programs and subjects in English, so there might be more options.

From my mates experience, it was important to plan beforehand which courses the target university offers which mapped well to the degree's requirements, and which really needed to be taken before going abroad.

My son looked into this but crossed it off his list because he doesn't have a strong language (and the course isn't accredited for Chartered status)

Must have been a different one, because my son's course does say it is accredited for chartership.

He looked at the Mechanical MEng, strange that some of the year abroad courses are accredited and others aren't.
Sorry, not very helpful, I hope someone with more info comes along

I did MEng at Imperial with year abroad from the Elec Eng dept. My year was in Stockholm and it was awesome and a much better year than I would have experienced in the Uk. There was no competition for places. I just selected the one I wanted and arrangements were made, but this was back in the hood old days or Erasmus.

I choose Sweden because it was taught in English.

He must have not been looking at Imperial. Engineering degrees from Imperial meet the requirements for chartership

This is from the Imperial website for the Mechanical MEng

My DS is doing MechEng at imperial. It is a very difficult course and the year abroad is competitive. My DS sailed through GCSE and A-levels, and his first two years at uni he squeaked by. Things are seriously improved in year 3.

The year abroad isn’t a sure thing - but likely a great opportunity.

Sorry my mistake.

Hi, OP -

For a few years I was the academic adviser for worldwide placements in my STEM School (ranked just below COWI in my discipline) while a colleague advised on European placements.

Is the year abroad a requirement? Would DS have the option of changing to an MEng degree that didn’t require it? Do the marks from the year abroad count towards the degree classification?

This will be important if he is thinking of the Spanish placement. With the best will in the world, I am not at all sure his very demanding course will leave him a lot of time to bring his Spanish up to the necessary level. Our students on European placements were required to have grade A at A level and we still took the decision to exclude the European year abroad from the degree classification, because they generally struggled, even after intensive pre-departure courses.

OTOH the University of California is the most competitive destination for my university and others; I am not sure about Imperial. Unlike other placements, which are made by the home university, UC makes the final choices from candidates nominated by their home universities (the application deadline is early to accommodate this). I would bet they favour COWI candidates but I know for certain that from my uni they only take top students. Those who go generally have a great time.

We send a number of solid students on 2.1’s and Firsts to Queensland and they generally love it. In my experience our students with a European heritage generally found the ethos of Chinese, Japanese and Singapore and universities too intense. We have stopped sending students there. We had some real MH problems based on a workload alien to UK students.

Realistically I think the best options sre UC, if it is not too competitive, and Queensland. Both can be great experiences. But DS needs a backup plan. Best wishes to him

It is very easy, when one lives in the UK, to underestimate the degree of fluency in a MFL required for an immersive year abroad. The standards of MFL in the English education system are shockingly low and even students who perform very well at A-level and degree are often insufficiently fluent for autonomous learning in an immersive setting.

@poetryandwine "Is the year abroad a requirement? Would DS have the option of changing to an MEng degree that didn’t require it?"

It's a requirement of the course he has the offer for. However if they don't meet the language and academic conditions for the 4th year abroad they default to doing the 4th year at ICL. That is fine, so long as his expectations are realistic (hence my questions). He switched from the vanilla MEng to the abroad version when filling in the UCAS form, without researching it, so now just needs to understand the small print before accepting the offer.

"Do the marks from the year abroad count towards the degree classification?"

Yes, they do.

Well DS has a great fallback then!