New to OU: Seeking Info' regarding Engineering.

Hi all.

I have applied to study with the OU and begin my access module (Y033 Science, Technology and Maths) in February. Following this, I intend to study the Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) Q65.

I'm wondering if anyone is studying or has studied either of these courses and how did you find it?

What are you intending to do when you complete your degree, or, what do you do now that you have completed your degree?

How did you find managing your work/family life balance?

I am interested in a number of Engineering roles and am aware that the degree course is accredited by IMechE, but a question which has been on my mind is: Following successful completion of the course, are there limited Engineering career options open to us?

I would appreciate any response to my thread.

Cheers! :smile:

Reply 1

Bleak Lemming

Original post by | Danny |

Hiya,

I'm studying the less new B65 pathway towards an IMechE / IET accredited BEng (Hons) in order to seek a career change from the NHS. I started the degree with no engineering experience what-so-ever and that still stands. I'm due to begin my level 3 modules in February.

I started off my degree by studying MST121 (30 credits) and MS221 (30 credits) together, which overlapped T173 (30 credits) towards the end. I also had T191 and TXR120 crammed in there also. You can search on google what the codes are if you're not sure but the latter ones are just a residential and a short professional development module. I completed my first 120 credits quite quickly, within a year or so of staring. It was hard work but enjoyable. I was able to work full time whilst doing this but spent a lot of time studying at work on night shift and until the early hours of the morning on my day / weekends off.

For my level 2 modules I studied T207 which is a mandatory core engineering module, MST209 which is a hardcore mathematics module- not for the faint hearted and TXR220 which is the second residential school (not sure if the OU do these any more). This year was crazy for me. I had to take 5 months unpaid leave from work which I wrongly thought would make it a breeze. MST209 took up so much of my time and there was assignment after assignment. Half way through this module it began to overlap with T207 which was a bit more easy going but difficult given that I was studying 120 credits simultaneously. I couldn't work and had very little time to do anything else (and enjoy it) as uni work was always on the back of my mind. Hard work but worth it, as I could have spread this over a year but I didn't and still achieved a 2:1 and a 1st in the two modules. I wouldn't recommend this however unless you're super dedicated like I was.

For my level 3 modules I'm doing them over two years, stared T397 in October which is an easy professional development module comprising of a couple of essays. The hard work starts in February when I begin T307 which is worth 60 credits, it still won't be as hard as my level 2s tho!

Thats my experience with the BEng so far anyways, so if you have any questions then just quote me in and I'll get in touch. I would imagine that Y033 would be a very basic module since it's an access module and only counts as 30 credits towards your degree. What line of work are you in at the moment, do you work long hours? What is your family situation?

In response to your question about options after obtaining your degree, from my research there's a great shortage of british engineers in the UK, so companies often have to seek engineers from overseas. The problem employers face is that that don't want to employ engineering graduates who have no experience on-the-job, they want engineers who have some experience and will be able to adapt to their new employment role. What I've started to do is look for placements such as a year in industry with the EDT (google them), or direct entries for a year in industry with gradcracker.com, no success yet tho but I'll keep trying. In essence I can't answer the question about opportunities as I'm not quite there yet but I'm sure that provided we put the effort in to looking for placements and graduate employment then there'll be someone out there somewhere wanting us!

Worst case scenario for me is that I come out with a decent accredited degree and can't immediately get a job, I'm sure I'll figure something out. Put it this way, it's better than being without a degree :smile:

New to OU: Seeking Info' regarding Engineering.

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