Chemical Engineering Applicants - 2017 Entry

Bit late to the party, but, I will be applying to Imperial & Bath. I am not sure what to put down for my other options yet. I might apply to Cambridge although I feel like I would be a weak candidate.
The dream would be Imperial

So what Universities did you originally apply to? What was the offer and your final grades? Thank you!

Is that the course where it's still a 4 year masters, and you do distance learning during the placement year. If I were to apply to Manchester, it would be for that course. How is the course? What's the accommodation arrangements at Manchester?

Is that the course where it's still a 4 year masters, and you do distance learning during the placement year. If I were to apply to Manchester, it would be for that course. How is the course? What's the accommodation arrangements at Manchester?



I wasn't too sure about Bath. They didn't seem very enthusiastic during the Open Day, and the course/uni isn't that good.

Bit late to the party, but, I will be applying to Imperial & Bath. I am not sure what to put down for my other options yet. I might apply to Cambridge although I feel like I would be a weak candidate.
The dream would be Imperial

Thank you for the insight! Do you think its worth going to the open day in september for bath? I went to the imperial one a few months back and didnt find it very useful.

Yes, its still one of the only places that does the 4 year masters with placement that is IChemE Accredited, meaning that it counts significantly towards chartership. The first year is tough. The first semester of second year is work your balls off hard. The second semester of second year is as tough as first year. I'm currently on the placement year so I can only give you information on 1 months experience of this and so far I'm enjoying my placement loads. But despite the difficult, I looooooved the challenge it presented. It also helps knowing im saving £12,500 in student loans by not staying at University for an extra year and will instead (hopefully) be earning money instead.
I think Manchester is an excellent choice for ChemEng as the facilities are excellent, the city is always busy and is very multicultural and diverse. The campus is well spread (not too cramped and not too spread out). Also, for those that are looking for student life, I am assured by my friends that Manchester has some excellent places for nights out as well as socials organised by the ChemEng Society.

Personally, accomodation was easy for me as I have family in Manchester who own student houses and was able to get a place from the first year easily. However, I know many people live in halls during the first year and then move into houses with friends they make in first year.

N.B.: IT IS SUPER IMPORTANT TO FIND A GOOD GROUP OF FRIENDS IN FIRST YEAR.

But honestly speaking, the lectures are interesting (as interesting as they can be made :P) and the work is tough but it is a degree where I feel I was really working for it and that my grades reflect the effort I put into my work. Remember, that this degree is REALLY hard work, but if you put the work it, it rewards your respectively.

Any other questions, feel free to ask

I feel kinda like a week candidate for Cambridge too, haha considering how my AS exams went.
How are you feeling about results day?

Would It be silly to apply for Chemical Engineering without A level physics? I still do Maths and Chemistry at a-level though.

I just got back from holiday recently but I'm going to Ibiza with a couple of mates for a few weeks and coming back just before results day. Definitely make sure you make the most of your summer next year especially as you'll be 18 but make sure you get everything planned fairly early before all the hard revision starts.

The "required practicals" sounds strange. Surely, you can just learn the theory which makes the whole thing a bit pointless? And anyway, there's not many significant practicals in Chemistry anyway - most of it is purely just titrations.

Looking back, M1 and M2 shouldn't have been as difficult as they seemed to be. The topics themselves weren't the most difficult in the world and yet, I spent more time working on M1 and M2 than C4, FP2 and FP3 combined. I hated D1 - always have and always will and S1 seems to be universally hated as well but S2 is much better. S2 is actually quite logical and involves some Differentiation and Integration and you'll be able to understand why something works.

We also had some "dedicated" EPQ sessions as well - they were all pretty much a waste of time. I didn't learn anything new and a lot of it is just knowing how to conduct research and wrote essays basically.

Ironically enough, I'll be applying to my firm uni again and it's probably going to end up being my firm if I don't succeed in applying to Cambridge hahaha but yeah I originally did want to do Chemistry but I changed my mind halfway through the year when it was too late.



Funnily enough, vectors were one of the things I found the easiest in M1 haha, I think it was cos I had already done C4 vectors by that time which made my life much easier.

I only did A Level Mathematics (WJEC) this year, as my school gave me the choice whether or not to sit the Chem & Phys exams. Hoping for an A in Maths, doubt I will get the A* after C4

Wow thanks for the reply. I have got some more questions if that's okay? I'd be staying in halls for the first year, but I got the impression they were separate from the main campus area with the departments and lecture theatres. Are the accommodation blocks all near each other?

Also, why do you say it's so important to make good friends in the first year? Is it easy to do so? From the chem eng course or from halls. How did you make friends?

No problem, feel free to ask any questions and I will try to answer them to the best of my ability . Some of the halls are literally on campus but they are normally quieter and more expensive. It is generally the foreign students who choose to stay in these halls. The other halls are 1 bus journey away in a place called Fallowfield and it is mostly the people who have also moved from home in the UK. The halls that are in Fallowfield are generally not as nice but are also much cheaper. Also, most of the students in Fallowfield are the partying types, so there is always something to do there. Many of the people I know actually chose to go to Fallowfield as it gives you more of an opportunity to socialise with your peers outside of lectures and gives you the opportunity to make friends. I would say that making friends outside of your course is just as important as making friends within your course. It will mean that when you're out with your friends, you won't just end up talking about work and will actually socialise :P.

Then there is a third option of private halls. They can be a good idea but it is important to remember that although they are cheaper, you won't have much contact with your course mates if you end up at one of them.

I say its important to make friends for a multitude of reasons. Firstly, many people move away from home for University and, for those that do, it can be a big change. Having someone to share your experience with/ask for advice can be very helpful. Also, having people to talk with if life isn't going your way is important to and you will find that you won't feel as 'isolated' for the people who tend to miss family. More than that it is important to have someone to discuss work with.

When it comes to coursework, as a lot of it is online tests, the lecturers almost encourage you to work together on the problems groups. They don't explicitly say it but they hint at it and there is noone to stop you. Also, studying in groups is actually proven to help you learn better and anything you don't understand can be explained to you by your friends as well as when you explain concepts to other people, it improves your ability to apply them yourself.

'If you can't explain something simply, you don't understand it well enough' ~Albert Einstein

Anyways, back to the question in hand, the main reason you should find yourself a good group of friends is that then, you get to know people for a year and can judge if they are people ho you would want to live with or not. Obviously, many people can be totally different when you actually live with them but you can make a fairly good estimation if you would want to live them. This will mean that your accommodation cost for the second year will be lower than your first as well as you not having all the restrictions of halls.

The best way to make friends is to attend as many events that interest you in Freshers' week, not necessarily parties, but there are also many society events that may take your fancy. Attending these will not only allow you opportunities to make friends with any old first years, but they will be people who hold similar interests to you. And, if you do end up going to Manchester, there is a surprise for you in your first week that will definitely help you make friends, if not help you to meet you course mates. :P

Any other questions, feel free to ask!

P.S. Sorry for the wall of text, I only realised how much I'd written after I'd written it lol

Amazing again thank you. I think I would probably apply to Fallowfield if I was going to Manchester.

Have fun in Ibiza haha, I think we actually have a year 13 holiday committee so hopefully they organise something good. I can't wait til next year's summer tbh, but I have a year of schoolwork to get through haha.

They are pointless lmao, even our teachers hate them but can't argue with AQA, really. There was a 6 marker on our paper this year about making a standard solution Hopefully 6 marks in the bag.

I felt like I had to work a lot on M1 and D1 actually, probably because I wasn't used to the "applied maths" I guess. I think I've decided on M3 over FP3 having looked at the spec, however FP3 looks fun ):

That sounds boring haha, but I still would have loved to do an EPQ. I also heard some unis lower their offer if you have an A in your EPQ- it's a shame my school didn't let me do it, really.

That kinda sucks haha. Did you have to do an interview? What was it like?

That's surprising that the M1 vectors help out with C4 haha, the C4 vectors look like they're on another level.

Thanks haha, it's mental here. I'll surpass my record of 4 days of continuous partying for sure it's ridiculously expensive tho - €18 for a vodka and coke!! Thats interesting, so does the holiday committee plan holidays for the whole year? I think this is where I'm meant to talk about the 'work hard, play hard' mentality but I've never really believed in that philosophy tbh hahaha.

6 marks on making a standard solution? I'm not sure if I could think of 6 points I could make but then again, I can't really remember how to even make one tbh hahaha.

I generally dislike the applied modules in Maths. Mechanics is interesting but it's quite difficult in Maths compared to Physics which is relatively straightforward. I wouldn't exactly say FP3 is particularly fun haha, maybe you'll change your mind once you do C4 Vectors.

I'm not sure which unis lower their offers if you do an EPQ - it certainly doesn't seem to be the case for the top unis, it didn't stop Imperial from giving me an A*A*AA offer!

Yeah the interview was really daunting at first - it was my first experience at something like that so it was quite scary talking in front of 2 people and answering questions. But the experience is definitely useful as I had to talk to 4 people all asking me questions for one of my YINI interviews. It also relaxed me for my Cambridge ones - perhaps I was a bit too chill because I got rejected after.

I don't think I know anyone that likes C4 Vectors or just Vectors in general. I only really understood them after the exam was over so it was a bit pointless really and I forgot all of it anyway when we started learning FP3 Vectors. Luckily, the exam I sat only had an easy Vectors question so I was able to get fill UMS in C4 which I was happy about.

Vectors require the most thought as they're like a simultaneous but they so confusing as there's so much going on at once with everything broken down to their directions and having two sets of brackets, a graph, equations of motion. So hard to get the head around all of it at once unless your a genius lol.