Chemical engineering application thread 2012

well i am posed with the same problem...dont kjnow what uni to put down as the fifth one.
Up to now i put down, Birmingham, loughborough, surrey and nottingham. I dont want to put down UCL since i think i haae no chance of getting in. Also i have received replies from Aston and Queens university in belfast however i heard they are kinda crappy so i dont know what to do, i want something with 'medium' grade requirments however a respected uni so that i can graduate and actually get a job.

well i am posed with the same problem...dont kjnow what uni to put down as the fifth one.
Up to now i put down, Birmingham, loughborough, surrey and nottingham. I dont want to put down UCL since i think i haae no chance of getting in. Also i have received replies from Aston and Queens university in belfast however i heard they are kinda crappy so i dont know what to do, i want something with 'medium' grade requirments however a respected uni so that i can graduate and actually get a job.

My friend you are largely misinformed. leeds is not good univeristy for chemical enginnering, Sheffield isnt the best but is by a country mile better for chem eng and in general. Leeds have a chem eng and nuclear course that has been running for more a year that isnt accredited. Sheffield has began a chem eng and nuclear course which is already accredited. I agree manchester is better, but it is heavily inflated in terms of grades and its studnet satisfaction is porr. Birmingham however is very good on all fronts. But please sheffield is above leeds in every league table; i dont live by the rankings but when it appears above leeds in three national, the international and in general rankings you have to take something from that.

I know what a redbrick is. The term is based on the fact that the six main universities in it all have substantial amounts of buildings built with red bricks. Your statement that firms and industry respect degrees from these six universities more than the rest of the universities in the UK is completely false.

wow, i thought you were kidding.

ok, it's generally well known that redbricks are renowned for being particularly good at civic sciences and engineering especially since they were situated at the major industrial unis in england. the basis of the name "redbrick" is because they have more red buildings, but they are famous for their engineering and civic sciences specialism which isn't surprising as they are all within a (formally) highly industrious cities.

Talking to people who have been in industry and have worked in chemical engineering companies, they have all told me redbricks are generally well respected in the field.

I dont know what your on about..leeds is icheme approved. 21 uk institutes are including london south bank, so what you just said is absurd..
http://www.engineering.leeds.ac.uk/short-courses/power-process/chemical-plant-commissioning/

Student satisfaction are well known amongst the best educates to be highly innacurate. First of all, everybody's perception of what's "good" is different. People who attend better known institutes set higher standards for them and generally set higher standards in most things associated to education. Just because one uni does worse than another on satisfaction doesn't mean that its more "satisfying". Why do you think imperial being perhaps one of the best institutes there is for chemeng gets such abysmall satisfaction but loughborough smashes it?! This is why the most influential world rankings dont even consider satisfaction?

My friend, general rankings mean nothing. For example cambridge is ranked above oxford in general, but for any humanities subject, oxford wipes the floor with cambridge. For chemeng leeds is ranked better than sheffield and nottingham, look for yourself: http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2011/subject-rankings/engineering/chemical-engineering

But if you believe sheffield is better. then whatever. Good luck

ok so either the chemical and nuclear engineering course isnt accreditted or for many months the university is so inept it hasnt updated kts website. Please explain how leeds is a better univeristy than sheffield. an individual ranking alone dosnt have much validity but when several all place sheffield higher; please explain how you can still deduce leeds to be better. It has woeful student satisafaction and is widely known to have very grim facilities.

There chem and nuclear eng course is not accredited i recieved an email from the chem eng department two days ago because i needed to finalise my choices. They are 'currently awaiting accreditation for the chemical and nuclear engineering course'. A course that has been running for longer than sheffields, yet sheffeilds begins 2012 intake. But it still has accreditation. Not a great sign.

The redbricks were initially set up to be based on the civic sciences and engineering (as opposed to the ancient universities which at the time were more focused on the arts and humanities) but that does not mean that now in this day and age they are always better than non-redbrick universities (e.g. Cambridge, Imperial, Edinburgh, Bath, Loughborough, UCL, Strathclyde) or more respected in the field of engineering.

You'll find that the universities a company "respects" is highly dependent on the individual company. It's nearly always the universities that do the most research collaborations/produce the most relevant research to the company/industry in question, as well as the local universities. It has nothing to do with the colour of the bricks or what the university was initially founded for. Hell, the vast majority of graduates or recent graduates I met were from universities that didn't even exist until the 60s or 90s.

I have actually worked with chemical engineers in industry. The redbricks are not generally more respected than the whatever-bricks. We don't care about the colour of the bricks that were used to construct the university building. We also don't care about what the university was initially set up for back in the early 20th century. All that's relevant is the quality of the individual when applying.

Well of course it doesnt neccessarily mean that it is better than non-redbricks i didnt say tha, but it gives them an edge compared to their other departments, ie engineering is amongst their strongest departments. Stop implying that i'm reffering to the colour of their bricks! The fact that they're called redbricks mean that they do particularly well in engineering, its to do with what the name represents not its literal meaning .

Redbricks are famous for generally doing well in engineering and technology, that is why they are respected. They produce valuable graduates and provide powerful research in engineering and technology that is why they are respected in industry.
Of course imperial and cambridge top all redbricks, but you will see after these two redbricks generally dominate in terms of performance in engineering give or take ucl, oxford and edinburgh sometimes competing in the same "league" if you will. Today, manchester is considered to be more academically prolific than oxford in the field. That makes a powerful statement.

It's not about the colour of the bricks literally. It's about what the title represents

What are you on about they're already accreditted!!
http://www.icheme.org/membership/accreditation/universities.aspx
Where are you getting this info from?

I'm curious to know what other rankings place sheffield above leeds for chemeng, especially when QS is the only rankings system (which so happens to be within the 3 most influential rankings systems in the world) that holds a table chemeng.
I'll accept that "generally" speaking it is better ranked better, though that on its own means little. It is also better ranked for engineering and technology on the whole, but thats only because they have a exceptional mechanical, electrical and civil engineering courses (dont get me wrong full credit to them) but it doesnt neccessarily mean they have a great chemeng department, especially when you see that its not considered 4* even.

According to who, does it have grim fascilities? I'm curious to know where you get your info. I think the fact that 2/3 of leeds graduates get a 2.1 or above is pretty good especially compared to sheffield 40%, which is worryingly poor. If you do enough research you will see that leeds outdoes sheffield in everything IMPORTANT, ie they got the joint third highest Research Assessment Excercise star average with a score of 3.00 compared to sheffield's 2.65

Well of course it doesnt neccessarily mean that it is better than non-redbricks i didnt say tha, but it gives them an edge compared to their other departments, ie engineering is amongst their strongest departments. Stop implying that i'm reffering to the colour of their bricks! The fact that they're called redbricks mean that they do particularly well in engineering, its to do with what the name represents not its literal meaning .

Redbricks are famous for generally doing well in engineering and technology, that is why they are respected. They produce valuable graduates and provide powerful research in engineering and technology that is why they are respected in industry.
Of course imperial and cambridge top all redbricks, but you will see after these two redbricks generally dominate in terms of performance in engineering give or take ucl, oxford and edinburgh sometimes competing in the same "league" if you will. Today, manchester is considered to be more academically prolific than oxford in the field. That makes a powerful statement.

It's not about the colour of the bricks literally. It's about what the title represents

awkward, i just said their chemical and nuclear engineering course is still seeking accreditation. Not all of them. I was using it as a compariosn. please re read. I emailed the department, it also mentions on the chem and nuclear engineering information page.

you mean everything research important, well for an undergrad that dosn't matter.

You seem to have completely ignored all of my points.

i have no clue why you lot are arguing! get a life

i fully understood your point and took it into account. You think red bricks have no advantage over non-red bricks, because you think it just means that the uni has red bricks. You think when an employer thinks of red bricks he literally thinks of Red Bricks. I'm explaining what the title means and represents. You also said, what ir represents is what it was initially set up for, which is true, but that itself shows that they are a specialist in the field.

This is again utter, utter nonsense.

Employers don't care about research output unless it is directly relevant to them. We don't even know about it otherwise. We do not look at newspaper league tables. We do not look at the latest RAE exercise either. We don't care. It doesn't make us money.

You sure have a habit of speaking nonsense don't you?

But then I guess that's what to expect when you're 18 and clearly know everything, certainly much more than people who are older and actually have experience.



I do not "think" that redbricks have no advantage over non-redbricks; I know that they have no advantage over the ancients, semi-ancients, plate-glasses or whatever because I have actually worked in industry and know how recruitment works.

Why is this so difficult for you to understand? Is it because you're 18 and already know everything?

No..it's because i have talked to other people within the industry and have told me so. Yes im 18. No im not in industry yet. But i've done my research, talked to people in industry, university lecturers and other people working in university departments on engineering and have told me so. i dont know who are, what you do or where you work, but i have contacted people within industry and institutes who have informed me so. Maybe where YOU work this may be true, but this is not neccessarily the case everywhere and at least i know now that maybe not everyone respects red bricks for their title since wherever you work doesnt, but from what i've gathered they're generally well respected for engineering.

TBH i've had enough of this. I've already applied and leeds is only my fourth choice anyway, so it isn't really that important to me. This was only meant to be a discussion of possibly good places to apply and i'm not gonna waste much more of my energy arguing otherwise. Good day sir, and keep your pants on, it's not worth flaring up for