Considering entry requirements tend to be A*AA or above, is it really that surpising? Intelligent people going in tend to be intelligent going out, even if they have killed a few braincells with alcohol on the way through. These people tend to be at the very top, straight A students. yet only 1 in 3 come out with a first - is it still looking pretty high?
Put it this way - if you were the smartest guy in your school/ 6th form, you'll be one of the middle crowd studying engineering at a top university.
Is engineering hard? yes. single module equivalent to an A-Level? yeah, probably about right. Are you able to pass using the same memory-tactics you've used at GCSE and A-Level? Not a chance - loads of people fail January exams in the first year because they think it is no different. You learn quick when you get your first 30% in an exam where previously you've had nothing but 85+%
Does that mean you'll have no life? that depends on you. If you're a bookworm, love the library and spend the majority of your time reading journals, then yeah, you'll go for a first, then probably a PhD.
You want a job? get a 2:1 or above. Put in 18 hour days in the few weeks before exams, work hard when you need to and you can pretty much use the rest of the time socialising. Make no mistake- it isn't Geography. You will have early 9am lectures, probably every day. You wont have a day Monday to Friday free, but that doesn't mean you can't go out, have a life, join societies and do cool stuff at the weekends like, I dunno, Skydiving, Ultimate Frisbee or extreme ironing.
University is what you make it. Engineering has more contact time than any other course, maybe perhaps excepting medicine, so you'll always have lectures to go to. Can you miss some, and still pass? yeah. But you're paying 9k a year for it right?
Then again, at the other end, after graduating, you'll get your pick of 100s of jobs, whilst your friends who did performing arts and humanities are all fighting for the 3 companies which aren't recruiting engineers at the careers fayre.
Stu Haynes, MEng