Looking forward to starting in the real world now
How old are you if you don't mind saying?
A question about Phd's and Eng Doc's
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How old are you if you don't mind saying?
I'm 25 - went straight onto PhD after graduating from an MEng.
Ah, really young then, you'll be fine.
I'm 26 in a few months and am only 8 months into my EngD haha. I'm so getting 'just for men' for my grad present.
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Ah, really young then, you'll be fine.
I'm 26 in a few months and am only 8 months into my EngD haha. I'm so getting 'just for men' for my grad present.
Definitely will need it - my hair has reclined considerably from a full head of hair to approaching a Jonathan Trott-like form very quickly. Glad to get it over with so the stress levels can get back to normal. Good luck with the EngD, sure you'll love it . . .
The job I'm going into is a largely R&D role that is in the area of research that I'm involved in at present, so got very lucky with it. Decreased the hours on the job and more than doubled salary, so it all works for me
You should be.
Nooo don't say that!
I'm actually quite excited as well as nervous. It's a research area I've got a decent interest in, and the department should be a nice environment to be working in.
Ah, really young then, you'll be fine.
I'm 26 in a few months and am only 8 months into my EngD haha. I'm so getting 'just for men' for my grad present.
Don't worry about age, globally most people don't get a PhD before they are around 30 or so. In Most countries you start your undergrad at 18 which is always a 4 year degree, you do 1-2 years masters and 4-6years Phd ( USA model). Many PhD candidates do their pHd in 7-8 years, in humanities in The US 8-9 years is not too uncommon.
For me I was the oldest in the year at school/uni. I did my undergrad in scotland so 4 years Honors. I had 1 year industry placement so I didn't graduate for 5 years. I luckily skipped a Masters which would have been 2 years for me in Switzerland - this is only by some extreme pressuring from professor to bend the rules. I completed my phD in 5 years which was bang on average for the school, many colleagues took 6 years and I would have liked the extra year but project funding ended at 4.5 years (EU project).
Just finished my EngD. Handed my thesis in. Just waiting for the paperwork to clear so the thesis can be sent out and I can have my Viva. I'm now employed by my sponsoring company. Salary wise it is better than not doing the EngD, but I think my sponsoring company have not done proper research on typical EngD salaries so I'm lagging behind my EngD friends. Not worrying about it though, I was head hunted a few weeks ago so just waiting for the Viva to be complete then I can commit to the new place. An EngD is well worth doing. Very interesting and you do a tremendous amount of technical and management. It gives you the 4 years CPD you need to get CEng, so as soon as i've had the Viva i'm applying for that.
I'm sure you'll be fine, I was only messing.
This is comforting to know. I am worried about agism in the UK, I'll just have to see what the job market is like when I graduate.
Can you just apply for your CEng interview once completing your EngD? I've seen that some EngD courses are accredited and some aren't and the Engineering Council's site wasn't exactly clear on it.
Have you already stated the process?
I'm sure you'll be fine, I was only messing.
This is comforting to know. I am worried about agism in the UK, I'll just have to see what the job market is like when I graduate.
Can you just apply for your CEng interview once completing your EngD? I've seen that some EngD courses are accredited and some aren't and the Engineering Council's site wasn't exactly clear on it.
Have you already stated the process?
If you have an accredited undergraduate degree then you are good to go. As soon as you have done the Viva send off the application. You need to do a report and a case study and one or two people to sign off on it. I don't know how up to date the website is as mine is IOM3 accredited but doesn't appear on the EC website. As I also have an MEng, it doesn't make a difference for me as the main part of the EngD is the experience. It is effectively a thorough IPD.
Car manufacturers are big on sm, Bentley even had a person in charge of just this (just in case you didn't already know
)If you are capable of continuing your education then do it, the world needs clever people.
Associate
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i'm not an engineer but I work in a niche engineering company which produces enterprise gearbox and driveline software and consulting services. our company is mostly made up of engineers of various types and perhaps the best bit of advice i can give from the outside looking in is that it's vital, if going into business, that you have some kind of commercial awareness. too often i have seen brilliant engineers come up with a great idea that there is no market for.
also, we do a lot of work in Asia. they LOVE an older (especially british) engineer. age brings with it a perceived level of experience we find. the age range in our company goes from recent graduates in their twenties to the company founder who is nearly 80! age is in fact a benefit in our field.
just my 2p
also, we do a lot of work in Asia. they LOVE an older (especially british) engineer. age brings with it a perceived level of experience we find. the age range in our company goes from recent graduates in their twenties to the company founder who is nearly 80! age is in fact a benefit in our field.
just my 2p
Soldato
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I know I said this years ago but I'm happy I didn't do an EngD. Having spoken to 3 EngD students they all don't like it. They said their biggest gripe was not doing enough ground breaking research, but instead they did mundane tasks at the sponsoring company. It's true - at the end of it they'll all have the title Dr. But how they get there is very important. Obviously I am not speaking for all EngD students, only for the 3 who I know.
I am doing a PhD with a CASE award sponsored by a large engineering company. I am really enjoying my PhD. I am completing a research project with direct applications to an industrial problem which is being faced right now. So I will see my research go straight into a solution in the next few years for the industrial problem which I am tackling. Furthermore I complete secondments at the sponsoring company and get to travel for conferences. I am absolutely happy. I am also recording my progress for Chartered Engineer status (CEng).
To answer your question about jobs: my PhD finishes in 2015. The sponsoring company, and the customers of the sponsoring company have made it abundantly clear that they'll be happy to take me on after my PhD is complete.
So in general I am happy
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I actually did the first year of a PhD. I made various threads of just how worthless and down it made me feel. I enjoyed my subwarden job though that I did on the side.
I learnt a lot about my self that year, plus as I got paid for it I view it was a job rather than a year lost.
I did it for near enough exactly 12 months. My supervisor was a penis and I would rather have jumped in front of a bus than spend 2 more years doing the PhD.
I have been in my current job 10 months. 8 months in I bought a house. I enjoy my job and feel like life is worth living again.
A PhD can be a brilliant thing to have and if you enjoy it then that is even better! For me though I found the prospect of feeling that way for 2 more years soul destroying.
I am now a design engineer and absolutely love how much engineers are in demand. The worries about finding work don't seem to apply to this field at the moment.
I learnt a lot about my self that year, plus as I got paid for it I view it was a job rather than a year lost.
I did it for near enough exactly 12 months. My supervisor was a penis and I would rather have jumped in front of a bus than spend 2 more years doing the PhD.
I have been in my current job 10 months. 8 months in I bought a house. I enjoy my job and feel like life is worth living again.
A PhD can be a brilliant thing to have and if you enjoy it then that is even better! For me though I found the prospect of feeling that way for 2 more years soul destroying.
I am now a design engineer and absolutely love how much engineers are in demand. The worries about finding work don't seem to apply to this field at the moment.
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Soldato
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I read somewhere one of the main contributing factors for people dropping out of PhDs are that their supervisors are morons. Don't feel bad.
I know I said this years ago but I'm happy I didn't do an EngD. Having spoken to 3 EngD students they all don't like it. They said their biggest gripe was not doing enough ground breaking research, but instead they did mundane tasks at the sponsoring company. It's true - at the end of it they'll all have the title Dr. But how they get there is very important. Obviously I am not speaking for all EngD students, only for the 3 who I know.
I am doing a PhD with a CASE award sponsored by a large engineering company. I am really enjoying my PhD. I am completing a research project with direct applications to an industrial problem which is being faced right now. So I will see my research go straight into a solution in the next few years for the industrial problem which I am tackling. Furthermore I complete secondments at the sponsoring company and get to travel for conferences. I am absolutely happy. I am also recording my progress for Chartered Engineer status (CEng).
To answer your question about jobs: my PhD finishes in 2015. The sponsoring company, and the customers of the sponsoring company have made it abundantly clear that they'll be happy to take me on after my PhD is complete.
So in general I am happy
That wasn't the case for me. I have absolutely loved the EngD and did a lot of ground breaking research. I have pioneered a new research field.
Thanks for that, my BEng is accredited by the IET and BCS so I'll just keep track of what I'm doing for CEng.
My research is groundbreaking and will open up an overlooked field at the moment, but with ground breaking research it's hard to know if it's going to be a niche dead end or the next big think don't you think?
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I read somewhere one of the main contributing factors for people dropping out of PhDs are that their supervisors are morons. Don't feel bad.
I don't feel bad.
I left because I hated my life so much I could not bare another 2 years of it!
The positives were:
I understood what I wanted in life
Eight months after leaving I bought a house
I got paid for the year, with 9-5 working hours so it was a job really
My job is going extremely well too
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Associate
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Get a job, don't waste three + years on research. We get PhDs in my work all the time looking for data etc for their research and most of the timeit is irrelevant. Your career paths in industry after a phd is limited to the r& d departments of big companies (talking about engineering PhDs or eng ds here).
EngD is very different in that respect. One of the things that sets it apart from the PhD is the industrial experience and management (much of the courses are MBA level). I'm certainly not working in R&D at the moment. Although I am looking to get back into that. I have been able to develop skills to actually exploit the research which again sets it apart from a PhD. People who can do that are in high demand and can make big money.
To be quite frank, it is a recent development which has turned the PhD in to something that people do because they feel their BSc (and/or) their MSc simply isn't enough to differentiate them.
Doing a PhD was once something done as a result of an active academic lifestyle, now it has been given a process and monetary value.
However, I don't think I'm being unfair when I say, you're quite wrong in your statement. No research is irrelevant, only a goal and money driven mindset would ever think that. Just because somebodies research doesn't interest you doesn't mean it won't be the catalyst for somebody else's brilliant idea (or your own!)
W.R.T. being stuck in R&D departments, I would argue that somebody who does a PhD probably likes research, so R&D is a natural industry destination, but that aside, what you say simply isn't true either. Many large companies are chock full of every type of engineer or other postgrad under the sun, all with degrees such as a PhD who perform everything from fabrication to R&D to design to sales (I know I currently work with one such company, literally everyone has a PhD bar one or two and this is a major motorsport company).
Then if you look to many other countries such as Germany, take a look at the big bosses of industry and see how many CEOs are Dr something or other.
Hardly "stuck in R&D".