What route for Electrical engineer.

Patient Keeper · 21 Jan 2011 at 22:09

Just do maths and physics and then anything else, make sure you get at least a B in both, even if your offer is AAB you will get in through clearing anywhere other than Oxford/Cambridge/Imperial, it is unbelievable really. Alternatively if you apply for an MEng and miss the offer you will probably get one on the BEng and you can just transfer by proving you can get above 55-60% in the first two years (which is mind numbingly easy if you bother to turn up).

Don't fool yourself by thinking there are masses of engineering companies crying out for graduates either. We dont have an engineering industry. Even in renewables you will be fighting 500 applicants for 1 job, and probably worse by the time you graduate as I expect it will be even more fashionable than it is now.

Patient Keeper · 21 Jan 2011 at 22:14

My advice is essentially, dont go to university unless you want to go into research and stay working at a university your whole life. There really is no point these days in getting a degree. OK you might want to be a charterred engineer, which might be difficult without a 'degree', but personally there probably isn't any advantage to this over going to a big engineering consultancy like Atkins, Mouchel, Balfour Beaty and get them to pay for your training

ripped · 21 Jan 2011 at 22:18

500-1 :O is it really that bad.

I think the Young apprentice program extends in to 6th form as well so hopefully that should give me a boost against other applicants. (John, the TDR man, said because we've nearly finished the course we have experience than a Graduate engineer :L)

Patient Keeper · 21 Jan 2011 at 22:21

Yes, you will never, ever be short of a 'job' with a 1st or 2.1 in Engineering from a good university (unlike most degrees), but it might not exactly be the high flying job people make you believe...

p4radox · 21 Jan 2011 at 22:26

If you're targeted an A for maths at the moment I'd definitely recommend doing further maths A level. It will give you an unbelievable advantage in the first year maths course if you already know a bit about complex numbers, differential equations etc.

alx · 21 Jan 2011 at 23:19

Patient Keeper said:
Don't fool yourself by thinking there are masses of engineering companies crying out for graduates either. We dont have an engineering industry. Even in renewables you will be fighting 500 applicants for 1 job, and probably worse by the time you graduate as I expect it will be even more fashionable than it is now.

What are you talking about? Yes, it's not like your guaranteed a job but this 'we don't have an engineering industry' is pretty much rubbish, unless you actually meant manufacturing.

You've got the whole of the North Sea oil & gas industry, other chemical and petrochemical industries in the UK (refineries for example), the large pharmaceutical industry, the numerous food & drink production plants, the aero industry (rolls royce, airbus etc) and that's just a few, I'm sure others can name many more...Dyson also recently started up a design engineering office with 25 mech eng graduate positions.....

I'm not saying getting a graduate engineering degree guarantees you a good job, but if you're a good candidate you do have a fair amount of choice and some half decent opportunities. Even if you don't want to become an engineer once graduating, many companies like to hire engineers due to their skill set. Do be aware that some engineering sectors pay much better than others.....

With the right job you can also move into management if you're want to/are good at it - something like 16 of the top executives (that is chief executives, managing directors or chairmen) of the FTSE 100 companies were engineers (this figure is from 200 though).