Which colleges are recommended for engineering students

Original post by jneill

Churchill is not *that* far from the dept. It's just a 30 min walk...

In fact all colleges are reasonably close in comparison to the travel distances common at other universities :wink:

True. However, when you compare strolling from Downing or Peterhouse to walking from Churchill, the OP will want to have extra time in bed. :smile:

Reply 22

Original post by Wired_1800

True. However, when you compare strolling from Downing or Peterhouse to walking from Churchill, the OP will want to have extra time in bed. :smile:

Yeah fair enough :wink:

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Reply 23

Original post by chinhan

Thank you all for your replies! Really insightful and helpful :smile:

I'll look more into individual colleges, and will definitely take your suggestions to heart

Cheers all! Have a good day :biggrin:

You're welcome, glad it gave you an insight . Very best of luck yo you👍

Reply 24

Original post by 210555

Taking a break from revision so thought I would offer some insight into my experience of applying to university for 2016 entry which hopefully some might find useful. Sorry in advance for the length of this post.
For me the decision was always about which course I wanted to do first and this is something I think we should all be honest about.Are you applying for the course or the university because of “so called prestige”? You must love your subject to survive in any good university, engineering is not a soft option.
I specifically chose the Meng because I liked the fact that the first two years were broadly general and I could wait until specialising. Academically I have 10 GCSE A*, 4 GCSE A, 96% SUMS and 98% MUMS so I was good to go. I am aiming for 4 A* at A level so I was doing o.k.ish (I Never pretend to be the brightest, I am just good at science stuff). By the way I have a genuine love of engineering and a very related hobby since I was seven years old. So for me it was about all about the course and Cambridge just happened to be one of the universities that offered it. So advice number 1 is to choose the right course for you and then research universities. If you find,as many do, that you are choosing Cambridge, then Imperial which does not offer this Meng then think hard about what you are apply for and be honest about why.I find it depressing that students choose the Meng at Cambridge as a route into Investment Banking, so sad.

Advice number 2:Attend lots of open days in the summer. This is what I did of which Cambridge and Oxford were included. I have to say that I was underwhelmed mostly by Oxford (I visited 8 universities). The facilities were outdated, the curriculum tired and staid and the stock answer from students to my question “why did you choose to come to Oxford” was
“because I didn’t get the grades for Cambridge”.(honest).Oxford was a definite no no for me.

For me the most organised open day was Warwick ( I have not chosen to go there so this is a totally impartial opinion offered). The Facilities are excellent, it was very well organised with loads of staff and students on hand to answer any questions and it had great employability links which are important for me. Importantly for future engineers the curriculum included mandatory economics and financial training (not something I look forward to but I see the point of it).

Now the Cambridge open day. Well in the morning the department is closed as you are supposed to visit the colleges. So at exactly1.00 pm thousands of people all descend on the department at the same time for the talks and walks. It was chaotic (parents were not allowed on the walks as it was too busy!). You only get chance to do a couple of them as it wasjust too busy. My overall impression was that it was ok but that they don’t need to try for students, so they don’t exactly put much effort in to the day. The Facilities are not as good as other universities, I put this down tothis degree having less of a practical slant to it than others. Where I have chosen to go has three times the number of labs per week as Cambridge and an equal number of lectures/seminars. The students were fab though and really nice down to earth people so I decided to apply. So advice number 2 is to visit as many universities as you can and have an open mind.

Advice number 3: Cambridge College system. Here I start to finally answer your question, sorry it took so long. Well as you can now see I was not into the whole “prestige” thing so believed the Cambridge hype that the choice of college does not matter. This WAS A BIG MISTAKE, I genuinely did not know that each college is a separate institution with it’s own admissions procedure/criteria. So I chose a small college very close to the department(which I did look around and felt comfortable with) purely based upon proximity and convenience. I would advise you to firstly look round as many colleges as you can and make a shortlist of those you feel most comfortable with as this is important. Once you have a shortlist (unlike me) DO YOUR RESEARCH. Which colleges require STEP, which restrict the number of 1^st /2:1 degrees etc This is all important and will impact upon your own ability to succeed. Hopefully the new departmental admissionstests will go some way to standardising the admissions process at Cambridge but each college does act independently and this is an important factor in the applications process.

Advice number 4: The interview. PREPARE and do not believe the videos on Youtube. Visit “I want to do engineering.org” and work your way through the website as this is great preparation. I am sure there are many good interviewers out there but can only go on my experience. The DOS who interviewed me was late, rude (yawning/sighing etc) and totally disinterested in the process. I knew I wasn’t getting a place after the first five minutes.Now I am not saying this is the experience of all but it does still happen so be prepared for how you would handle this (just in case). I have spoken to others and there seems to be a mixed bag of experiences, some good and some bad like mine. It is not just Cambridge by the way. Academics can be a strange lot,a friend of mine had an even worse experience at Imperial! So just accept the interview experience can be a “lottery”. Whatever the “hype” there is no doubt it is a very important part of the process so prepare in advance and think about what you would do if faced with what I had to deal with. I didn’t think about it that much in advance and this was my downfall.

Conclusion – whilst waiting for the decision (which I knew) I found myself asking if I would accept if by any stretch offered a place. I concluded that “I would because it is Cambridge ” but I now know this would have been a mistake for me personally. I Am happy with my choice, it is somewhere I visited some six years ago whilst taking part in an engineering weekend activity designed to spark students interest in the subject. I felt happy there then, love the up to date curriculum and will come out with my Meng (it is definitely not a soft option).

Over to you: So you will learn a lot by your UCAS experience. By all means go for Cambridge if it is what you want but have an open mind about other universities too. Think about what you want to study and why before choosing where. If you apply to Cambridge, then be strategic about your college choice and above all else PREPARE for the interview. I wasnever that bothered but would have loved someone to have given me this advicethis time last year. I wish you the very best of luck in whatever you decide.👍

This was a very good read for me. Thank you.

If I may ask, which university did you enroll in the end?

Reply 25

Original post by Wired_1800

True. However, when you compare strolling from Downing or Peterhouse to walking from Churchill, the OP will want to have extra time in bed. :smile:

That was the rationale for my choice, not the wisest move I ever made 😜

Reply 26

Original post by 210555

That was the rationale for my choice, not the wisest move I ever made 😜

Why was it not the wisest choice? From your post, you discussed about the bad interview, but you did not explicitly explain why choosing Downing because it is closer to the Engineering buildings than Trinity was not a wise choice.

I know people who have chosen Colleges based on insignificant attributes like Kings has a lovely Chapel and St Johns has a 'decent' boat club.

Also, if I may ask, please where did you enrol in the end?

Reply 27

Original post by Wired_1800

It wasn't Downing by the way! I prefer not to state the college as I would hate to put applicants off, let them make their own decisions. Apologies, my last post was a bit "tongue in cheek" referring to my own lack of research when making my choice last year!

As for where I am off too., hopefully grades permitting. Well I am definitely not a big city person so I narrowed it down between Warwick and Durham!

Both had pros and cons. Departmental wise they are both quite similar although Durham is smaller! Both have fantastic facilities and a solid timetable that balances well between academic and practical application which is what I like. They both change and update the curriculum regularly too which I like.

I am not daft though. Nowhere is perfect and I fully expect a range in the quality of teaching, I have been warned.

But in the end I cast my mind back to An absolutely freezing February half term some years back. I spent a few days in a tent demonstrating something I had designed and built at a Durham Uni engineering event. I loved it, met some the staff and was lucky enough to get a look around. I knew then I would apply there.
I am a Northerner and I love Nothumberland so that was the deciding factor for me.

Ironically though, I still chose a Hill college next to the science block so I could roll out of bed to lectures within a few minutes. Some things don't change. 😜

PS (definitely not a Bitter Cambridge reject, the place was not for me! But is is still a top uni and my posts are meant to assist next years students through the whole process)

Reply 28

Original post by 210555

Hi,

I agree. Durham and Warwick are top universities.

I understand that you need to share your experience with people. I have also heard similar stories from people applying to Oxford, Imperial and Warwick. Experiences are often subjective and you can be unlucky to get a "bad" interviewer that can mess your experience.

Yeah, choosing a College that is close to your department is often a no-brainer. Like yourself, it is good to be close to the science block. It is often about the culture and you seem to like the Durham culture.

Thanks for sharing your experience and Good luck. I hope you achieve your grades and go where you have chosen and will be happy. :smile:

Reply 29

DJP112

Hi there,

I'm a second year engineer at Cambridge at the moment. Choosing a college can be really tricky but my advice would be to be really brutal. Get a big list and cross off colleges one by one until you have a reasonably short list, then on the open day have a look around your short-list and see which college feels most like home.

If you're really keen on living near the department, (where 100% of first and second year teaching minus supervisions is, and a large part of Part 2 teaching) make sure to look into/ask on the open day what the situation is with 2nd, 3rd and 4th year accommodation is. Some colleges will let you stay on the main site for the whole time, which is also convenient for things like food and libraries, whereas others have the majority of their accommodation off-site (could be very far away from the main site).

Reply 30

Original post by DJP112

Hi, This is good advice. To assist the OP may I ask what criteria you used to shortlist your colleges? This may provide valuable insight. Thanks

Reply 31

Original post by DJP112

If you're really keen on living near the department, (where 100% of first and second year teaching minus supervisions is, and a large part of Part 2 teaching) make sure to look into/ask on the open day what the situation is with 2nd, 3rd and 4th year accommodation is. Some colleges will let you stay on the main site for the whole time, which is also convenient for things like food and libraries, whereas others have the majority of their accommodation off-site (could be very far away from the main site).

Yes very good point!

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Reply 32

DJP112

Original post by 210555

Hi, This is good advice. To assist the OP may I ask what criteria you used to shortlist your colleges? This may provide valuable insight. Thanks

There's no right way to do it really! I got rid of the easy ones first (postgrad/female only), then got rid of all of the non central colleges, and then got rid of the ones that didn't seem to have much going on in terms of music (that's something I was keen on doing as an extra curricular). That left me with a manageable list for the open day.

You have to be brutal really you need to cut it down from ~30 to 1!

Reply 33

Original post by DJP112

That moment when you get pooled somewhere else... :wink:

Reply 34

chinhan

Haha thanks once again! Really appreciate the opinions and suggestions :smile:

Reply 35

RyanW97

Original post by DJP112

Just wondering what you think of the course overall and what the workload is like? I have an offer to study at Trinity next year but I'm struggling to decide between there and Imperial for Aeronautical Engineering!

Sorry for the irrelevant question haha

Reply 36

RyanW97

Original post by jneill

That's very true too.

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I thought that the Engineering department decided the quotas for each class of degree and the colleges only provide supervisions? Surely it wouldn't make sense to award degrees by comparing students at one college because they could all be exceptional and some be given a worse grade than they deserve, or they might be below average and have inflated grades!

Reply 37