Civil Engineering Degree

[MonkeyTennis34]

DS is in his 1st year at Liverpool Uni.
Socially, he’s settled in well.
He’s just told us that he’s finding the course itself “boring as hell”.
A bit of a shock.
Does the second year get more interesting?

@careerbreak Who said it was a race? It’s surely the case that dc should weigh up the options? If they haven’t really understood the options and how being Chartered works then believing one option is always better might be totally wrong for them. Five years to do the MEng is a long haul. Plus the BEng is leading to Incorporated Engineer so dc need to know this too.

Years ago the BEng was 3 years and dc just went on to get Chartered (MICE) in around 3-4 years if they were any good. Mo masters needed. Dh was also MIStrucrE at the age of 28. Some took a lot longer to get chartered in any discipline. I’m not aware of any of DH colleagues having a year in industry back then (maybe the old polys offered it?) but working and earning asap was a goal for most but DH was offered 5 jobs when he left university. Amazing how they coped as engineers really with such a basic education.

There was a lot of maths as I remember and a lot of basic things on my course, concrete mix design, environmental, heating and lighting, technical drawing, surveying, soil mechanics, a little bit of everything in the first year. For me most of it was pretty new and interesting, but that was a long time ago. It did get much more specific (and difficult) later, design of structures with lots of calculations involved, lots of complex maths.

My child left Liverpool at the end of the second year - “Mum, I can’t bear any more soil!” He was really motivated by engineering as a career, hence why he kept going into the second year, but he was bored from the start with the course content.

@catipussCivil engineers do not do heating and lighting! Who does technical drawing now? When was this?

I’m attaching the first years of BEng civil engineering at Liverpool, Sheffield and Bristol. There is a difference in what is studied but Liverpool has a broader spectrum of compulsory modules. Why would he find these boring? He’s just maybe not an engineer? The Liverpool course could be less mathematical than the other two?

@MeetMeOnTheCorner
DS is definitely more comfortable with Maths and I guess all the other elements are new.

This is the ICE advice for student engineers: https://www.ice.org.uk/your-career/how-to-become-a-professionally-qualified-engineer/if-you-are-studying/advice-for-students

It says "You can record any work experience you gain during your studies and give yourself an advantage by having it assessed before you complete your course. You should progressively record your experience on the Attributes achievement form for students which will give you a head start in achieving professional qualification with ICE. If your placement employer or University assigns you an ICE mentor or Supervising Civil Engineer (SCE) you are than even able to use the ICE online system to record your experience."

Thank you @inchingthru for the sensible, up-to-date guidance 👍

@inchingthru Ol but their video advice says something else: confusing!

Experience recorded as evidence against a competency framework is necessarily cumulative over time.