Chemical Engineering 2014 Entry Applicants

It's 1 of my 3 engineering options. Still haven't decided which one I want to do yet

Hi,

I'm thinking of doing it as well.
What unis are you looking at?

Bath, Birmingham, Nottingham and Heriot Watt are the ones I like the most.
Then its one out of Loughborough, Leeds and Newcastle.

I've been to Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham and Nottingham so far.

And I know, I considered going to an open day but they seem to be giving out 4 A*'s to a lot of people, so I might avoid that one

Where have you looked at so far?

I thought Leeds was good but not the best.
Birmingham was incredible, would love to go there or Bath.
Manchester had awesome facilities but I think it is too close to home
I didn't expect to like Nottingham but I really enjoyed it. The pilot plant they have is pretty good.

Have you got any ideas as to where you want to go to?

Yeh, our group won it; but they didn't give us a prize

I agree about Leeds though, I assumed every Uni would push you towards a year in industry, but they seemed reluctant to do it.

I wouldn't put too much emphasis on a year in industry. Yes, it's experience and experience is paramount, but you don't have to do a year in industry to get experience: you can do summer placements, like what I did. Ultimately I haven't seen any evidence that suggests that employers vastly favour a year in industry compared to a summer placement, especially if you have multiple summer placements.

If you do a year in industry, and this adds a year to the length of the degree as most do, you have to consider that you're spending a year earning a placement wage (typically between £15,000-£20,000) when you could instead graduate a year sooner and be earning a graduate wage (see Unistats for average graduate salaries of engineering courses). The engineering market isn't so tight that a year out is required to secure a job.

Hmm, that's something to consider actually, thank you for that.

I wouldn't mind earning a placement wage instead of a graduate wage, I'm sure the difference won't be too large.

Are you a chemical engineer then, completed your degree and all?

The difference can actually be quite large, sometimes double, even.

I just finished my mechanical degree. Worked alongside some process engineers on placements.

I want to do chemical engineering and am applying for 2014 entry. However I want to know if work experience or volunteer work is necessary? For example, if you want to do medicine you need a lot of work experience to get into medical school but what about getting into engineering school? Since engineering is much more theoretically focused i'm not sure it would be possible to find any relevant work experience. So doing just ANY work experience will only be a waste of time in my opinion but ultimately I am still quite unsure.

Fortunately, my parents are both engineers so it has been pretty easy to find placements.

Although some of the experience I've had with companies has been pretty poor.