Doing a Physics degree if cannot get into Engineering

[blueshoes]

Is it a viable option for ds to study Physics at university, rather than Engineering, if Ds wants to be an engineer when he graduates?

Ds is waiting for his A level results and has to go into clearing in August as he wishes to swap from his UCAS firm choice of Economics into an Engineering course. Being a serial mind changer, it is a matter of chance whether a place comes up in clearing for him to get into an Engineering course of his choice (General, Mechanical or Aeronautical) at a university of his choice.

In the spirit of hedging his bets, it looks slightly easier to get into Physics courses. He might be able to get a Physics course in clearing at a more competitive university.

Is is wise for him to do Physics if he wants to be an engineer is in terms of getting a job and desirability to big employers? Dh and I have no background in engineering or sciences and have no idea.

Just to throw a spanner in the works, ds might change his mind again and decide to go into finance on graduation. How would a Physics (as opposed to Engineering) degree be regarded by Finance employers?

All tips and thoughts gratefully received, as they were on my previous thread🙏

@SabrinaThwaite I didn’t know dh at university but as an employer he used to wonder why MEng people were not all good! He was 3 year BEng but could do and understand a lot more.

You’re comparing degree courses 40 years ago with degree courses now.

It’s been an enormous shift from 10 - 20% of school leavers going on to higher education in the 70s / 80s to Blair’s late 90s target of 50%.

You can’t cover the same depth / breadth within subjects with less resources than those available 40 years ago.

@SabrinaThwaite Yes I know the stats. Actually 50 years ago! However some students will tell you they do work pretty hard on the best Meng courses. Whether they get quality degrees is another matter. Blair never did get 50% of school leavers to university. It’s currently around 37% but our workforce has about 50% with degrees. The 1992 expansion of unis was under a Con government and so was lifting the cap on numbers by Cameron. Both huge mistakes.

Re quality degrees- completely agree- even on courses that are accredited.
DS interviews grads for roles in their company and the disparity in knowledge and depth of understanding is very stark. The RG/traditional unis cover the material in more depth than the local ex-poly, and it show when they’re being asked technical questions in the interview.

@TreesOfGreen99 DH occasionally found grads found thinking in 3D difficult when they had degrees that included structural engineering. It’s a bit like the DS here - have a go at engineering because they might want finance but they aren’t engineers. DH found some ex polys very good by the way because some lecturers actually had worked and knew what was needed.

I looked at the official websites of all branches of the armed forces, and physics graduates can apply to become engineering officers. They undergo training, gain qualifications for specialized roles, and can even achieve accreditation as engineers with relevant institutions. The training and qualifications are benefits funded by taxpayers, while individuals cover the membership fees for accreditation with the engineering institutions.

@ThisTicklishFatball appreciate the research you have done. Being an engineering officer in the armed forces sounds like a good option, particularly with all the funding from the government.

RAF has a special agreement re training to be incorporated or chartered engineer. The military is different.

How about a degree with an industrial placement. So Surrey Uni for example. Do two years physics. Work for third year. Back at the uni for final year.

Who finds the placement? If the student - lots don’t get them. Universities never have enough. Plenty find these courses are not what it says on the tin!

Hey, ex chemical engineer here. Engineering is an awful job that pays rubbish both in the UK and overseas, and the degree is soul destroying.

Why waste brain power on being paid peanuts? I'd say do the physics degree (which is a very valuable degree btw, its looked on highly), and then pivot into financial services. Or do an economics degree, and the above. My sister did an economics degree at a London uni, graduated with a 2:2, and 10 years on earns well into a 3 figure salary At a private equity firm. She spent a good amount of that time working very long hours, but now she's at a point where she works the regular 9 - 5, WFH a day or two a week.

Also, my other sister followed in my footsteps and did an engineering degree (this was before I realises how much of a dead end engineering is). On graduating she got her first job as an accountant at a bluechip company that paid for her to qualify as she worked. She's in her mid-late 20s and earns 75k in London, with a bonus.

Yes, but she is an accountant and that’s dull!

No duller than being an engineer, trust me. That work is totally soul destroying, repetitive, spreadsheet-monkey type stuff and highly volatile. There is nothing interesting or glamourous about it. Oil prices go down and there are mass redundancies. The golden times for engineers are over, the nice internatiinal packages are over. If a young person has the intelligence to do an engineering degree, then I'd steer them to a more lucrative, stable field.

As a CEng FIMechE I’d say that was just your career choices. There’s lots of interesting roles and paths in engineering and the opportunity for decent pay and international travel.

True, but a chemical engineer working in oil and gas on a full international contract could have a very lucrative career in a variety of interesting countries, with all expenses paid.

Hard to compete with that, there are still good opportunities but it’s ever more competitive and it’s always been an industry that has mass layoffs during the down cycles.

Hi the discussion on whether engineering is a deadend career is an interesting perspective @Justaminuteplease.

Times being so hard for new graduates ds will probably be happy to do any job. Is there any reason he could not pivot from Engineering to Finance? He is choosing Engineering because it is supposed to keep options open to work as an engineer or in finance.

He could study Economics and currently holds an unconditional offer to do Econs BSc at uni. However, he tells me he finds the study of Physics and Maths more interesting than Economics and would prefer to do Engineering at uni.

Engineering is practical and problem solving in the real world and seems to give transferable skills. As an engineer he could go into management or consultancy or go into finance. Ds is not an Engineer's Engineer, if that makes sense. He is more of an all rounder.

Those kind of contracts are rarer and rarer, and the overall packages are not what they once were. I know, because my dad was also an engineer and got fantastic overseas packages. The last company he worked for, a Middle Eastern oil and gas national company, had significantly downgraded packages across the board. One reason is that the price of oil and tanked and never really gotten back to previous levels, and there is an influx of much cheaper labour from Asia. I also know because I work for an oil and gas company in the UK.

Engineering has never been that well paid in this country. A few decades ago that wouldn't have been a problem because housing was much more reasonably priced. You could still have a comfortable life. Now, it makes much more difference.

All things considered, if a kid has the brains to do an engineering degree, I wouldn't advise them to pursue engineering as a career. Like I said it's a volatile industry, redundancies are rife, and benefits have been eroded.

Accountancy is a good, solid option for an introverted person. Private equity, and finance in general, would be where I'd advise more extroverted personalities to go.

I'm sure there are other great career choices. Imo, engineering isn't one of them.

In my experience, fintech companies rate economics and physics degrees more than engineering ones. And I certainly wouldn't be paying an extra year to do an engineering masters if the thinking was to pivot.

You could probably more easily pivot and engineering degree to accountancy.

Just my experience.

Depends on the type of engineering! My DD and her BF are both engineers of different types - early stage but they both love their jobs which are not remotely dull and repetitive and although maybe not as lucrative as finance they are paid decently for their age.
But they’ve both known they wanted to do what they do from a young age, and are good at it. They’re the ingenious type of engineer. It doesn’t sound as though your DS is, OP, so it may not be the right route for him.

In oil and gas we don't have ingenious engineers. We have engineers who churn out work that is very well understood in processes that have remained the same for decades because that's what customers want and pay for. They dont pay for new, unevidenced processes. It's a shame because oil and gas is possibly the best paid sector for an engineer to work in, but the work is dull as dishwater.

OP ask your son to Google what a line list is, and then imagine doing one for months on end as part of a detailed design project. Imagine using a clunky simulation, where you design and redesign and redesign endlessly the same few sections of piping on a plant. It is the worst, most soul destroyingly awful job on the planet.

It's not just my experience either. There are lots of ex engineers who leave the profession and do something more interesting, more lucrative and in a less volatile sector. I wouldn't waste the money on a four year masters degree and then a bunch of years in engineering figuring out that it doesn't get better for a lot of people.

Also, fresh engineering graduate salaries are usually higher than salaries for other professions, but don't be fooled. Those salaries will plateau relatively quickly.

Have they thought about civil or structural engineering?

@Justaminuteplease apart from oil and gas, do you know about defence or aerospace. Mech and Aero is where ds' interests lie.

Private equity and investment banking will be interesting but I don't think ds is solely interested in fintech. He did an internship in a fintech company but thought it was a little meh. Granted that was only a tiny slice of the business.

@ErrolTheDragon what is an 'ingenious' engineer? Can you give examples? I am genuinely curious as I am worried ds does not have a strong calling. He changes his mind a lot.