Anyone got any experience in Mechanical Engineering

lynchy6789

lynchy6789

lynchy6789

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Been looking at some Universities and i am look at possibly Civil or mechanical engineering after year 13 be 2010 placement. Due to my poor choice of A-levels will be doing (Maths, Business, Media and AS Physics with an As in chemistry) i will have to opt for a Mechanical Engineering with a Foundation Year that will be 5 years!

If someone could tell me a bit about what Mechanical Engineering involves and their experiences that be good.

My other will be to do a Business degree something like Accounting and Financial Management and Economics or Accounting and Financial Management and Business Management.

Thanks.
 
Can you not carry forward your Physics and Chemistry to A2 as oppose to your media and business??

My course (Mech Eng) required maths and physics so i don't know if you will be limited there.

Mechanical engineering is so broad its hard to sum up, try googling it!
 
I worked as an Electrical Engineer alongside Mechanical engineers for years, but as said above the term is incredibly broad. Our Mechanical engineers designed services such as air conditioning, heating, plumbing etc.

I know at the time you didn't need to go to university to become professionally certified, I didn't on the electrical services side (power/lighting/security/fire). All we needed was 5+ years experience as a junior engineer and an HNC in electrical engineering, which rankly was a doddle to get.

You really need to try and find out what sort of mechanical engineer you want to be mate, there's dozens of them! Just about everyone calls themselves "engineer" these days!
 
Hello I'm currently doing a foundation year with mechanical Engineering at Southampton and its been fine so far I can't really tell you a lot about mechanical engineering as I haven't started it yet but from this year I can tell you there's some maths in there.

This year been pretty heavy on hours but the content isn't massively difficult except for the maths. Theres lots of labs to do which are all right but its all higher/a-level sort of stuff so its not very exciting.

To be perfectly honest in hindsight I would have done another year at college to get the qualifications to go straight into the first year as then you get to avoid all the extra self assessment crap the uni makes you do. Also the fact that for me uni has been very expensive. Saying that the people in the foundation year have been fantastic and there is a lot more going on at uni than there ever was at college.

wish I could tell you more D:
 
It all depends on how interested you are in engineering, and what you'd "like to do when you grow up". Personally I think foundation years are a bit of a waste of time, and you'd be better off doing your A2 in Physics part time and getting some work experience for a year (the extra money will come in handy when you do go to university).

For me, I think I'd do the mech eng course, mainly because if you do a business / management job you'll find out that at graduation pretty much anyone is okay to apply for the same jobs as you'll be looking for. But that wouldn't be true for the mech eng course.

Engineering isn't an easy subject though, so if your ability in maths and physics isn't that great, I'd think twice.
 
Thanks for the information been very helpful. I massively regret not taking Physics at start of Year 12 and for some reason i took chemistry. Chemistry wont be an option next year as i just don't enjoy it. It could be an option to stay on for another year at college and in the meantime carry on with my part-time job and earn money. Wouldn't be too bad as a few of my friends will be staying to do a 3rd year.

Also be looking into surveying also quite interested in Accounting and Financial Management and Economics.
 
Courses vary a lot as well, some tend to be more academic where as others you get the opportunity to get your hands dirty. Physics is pretty essential for engineering, from the thermodynamics and even some of the dynamic stuff. Some universities (lough for example) have like a couple of days taster session in engineering as a whole (elec, mech, civil, aero etc) if you are unsure you may want to get yourself on one of these....what grades are you looking at??
 
Well not 100% sure what i am going to get for as but from mocks and that i am hoping for an A in Business, A in Media an B in Maths with a C/D in chemistry. Thanks for that Richard i will have to look into that. Yea i really regret not taking Physics. At the moment not really sure what i want to do.
 
Mech Eng can be an incredibly diverse field and individual jobs can also be pretty diverse. The maths side is pretty intense at Uni but I would imagine few practicing engineers use it on a daily basis.

I really enjoyed studying Mech Eng at Uni of Nottingham but really struggled with the calculus intensive stuff like dynamics, thermodynamics and fluid mechanics. But the job I do now is incredibloy involved and requires a lot of intelligence but little in the way of that type of skill.
 
Just finished my MEng at sheffield in mechanical engineering on monday and loved it. If your good at maths & physics i would recommend it if it interests you
 
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