Have Your Degree Choices Changed Since Year 11 to Now?

My degree choices ended up being like a homogenous catalyst- they went through several changes, but went back to the original by the end of it. A nice full circle . Chemical Engineering was the first time I'd really thought "Wow here's a subject I'd actually like to do at uni". After that I considered several other subjects (i.e. Chemistry, Biochemistry, Civil Engineering, Economics, Maths, Medicine, Physics) and at one point had provisionally decided on doing a Chemistry degree instead, but in the end I was always going to end up doing Chemical Engineering. It's the only subject for me

I became really political and politically aware in year 11 and knew that I wanted to study politics, so I took it for A levels to see how it was and now i'm doing it at uni

That's like me!
I went into secondary school *knowing* I was going to do an English degree, but started seriously considering Medicine in year 10, took science AS levels and English, then switched back to English.
That might have something to do with the fact that I absolutely loathed Biology and Chemistry, but really, I can't actually do a degree other than English.

No.



Again, no.

In university engineering things are nearly always done in ideal or fairly ideal conditions; this is because university "engineering" is more about mathematical analysis than proper engineering and several mathematical analysis questions can be given in the space of a few hours if these in are ideal or close to idea conditions. Whereas a real-world engineering problem could take days or even weeks to solve, and may require a team of people.



Without an engineering degree you almost certainly won't be an engineer. The engineering positions in the companies I'm looking at are simply not open to physics graduates. And if they were then you'd have a hard time selling yourself to them if your degree wasn't in engineering.

Physicists have a different skill-set from engineers and are thus valuable in other roles such as research, and if you really love the theoretical side of physics then engineering isn't really for you, as you're just as likely to be spending your time dealing with suppliers, meetings, selecting suitable components from large lists and witnessing testing of products than you are doing calculations. Physicists are hugely important in engineering and technology and I'm sure you'd get an appropriate role within an engineering firm.

You could get into engineering with an appropriate MSc, although you'd most likely have to fund this yourself and MScs aren't cheap - the good ones at my university cost over 15K. So if you really want to be an engineer then do an engineering undergrad! No need for expensive MScs and straight into the world of work after an MEng!