Year 12s: what will be the first way you research your future options? >>

civil vs mechanical engineering

I'm about to apply soon to uni, yet i can't really decide which way to go.
I like engines, especially stuff like motorcycles and cars and jets. so that's why I would go into mechanical.
Yet I also like the idea of working for say big construction projects like bridges or infrastructure.

My fear is that my love for engines is only like superficial. If I had to study every tiny detail of it, I might not enjoy them as much as I do now?

One more thing: Although I'm quite good in math, its not my hobby or favourite pastime to do math or work on math problem. In short, I'm not in love with maths. (doesn't mean I'm not good at it)

I believe mechanical is more math based than civil, especially when I look at the course structure for civil and see it has things like geology, and water treatment stuff in there. Which sounds quite interesting.

So am i right to assume mechanical is more focused on math than civil?

I should therefore......go into civil?

Reply 1

thefish_uk

Original post by crazybike

I believe mechanical is more math based than civil, especially when I look at the course structure for civil and see it has things like geology, and water treatment stuff in there. Which sounds quite interesting.

So am i right to assume mechanical is more focused on math than civil?

I should therefore......go into civil?

You're going to have to do a fair bit of maths in either. A lot of theory relating to things like forces, stresses and material properties is going to be common to both and to understand this you need the maths. You are right though in that a lot of the stuff in mechanical is more theoretical (particularly when you look at fluids and thermodynamics) and you can easily get tied up in confusing thermodynamics equations, vectors, geometry etc. Though there are some bits in mechanical which require simply learning a lot of stuff, particularly in materials. Topics in civil can be a bit more rough and approximate as concrete and soil are difficult to predict, though there are a few places it can get quite mathsy still e.g. stress analysis, stability of structures, response of structures to vibrations, where it begins to overlap with mechanical.

Then again a lot of the differences I saw might have been more to do with the styles of the people who put together the courses - most of the mechanical / thermodynamics lecturers were career academics who liked to get very theoretical, and most of the civil lecturers had worked in industry before academia so they taught us what they thought was most useful to a practising engineer.

On the flipside a course where there is less maths will mean more stuff that simply has to be learnt! On a very mathsy module you can often walk into the exam, apply the stuff in the databook where it's needed and work through the maths to the answers (provided you have had enough practice at doing this). On a less mathsy module you'll be trawling through your lecture notes for weeks desperately trying to remember every little detail, and looking at past exam mark schemes trying to work out how to jump through every hoop in your answers. Different people prefer different styles of questions.

Reply 2

Smack

Volunteer Team

I'm actually doing a module on water treatment at the moment. It's quite interesting and not particularly maths heavy - although it is quite chemistry heavy and they've sneaked in a lot of fluids and pipelines as well. A lot of memorisation of environmental laws, processes and, uh, "facts". Formulae sheet is still three pages long, though, so they might be about to bugger us with maths equations yet!