Foundation year engineering questions

Hello,

Okay, things have been a little complicated, so please bear with me.

I'm currently at the UoM studying Biomedical Sciences. Truth be told, I don't even know why. It's something I fell into after a horrible 2 years at A level in which I stopped sleeping or attending school and contemplated killing myself multiple times over.

I have become increasingly interested in pursuing engineering. I didn't study Maths or Physics at A level and it may, according to the people I spoke to at the Uni, be possible to transfer next year to the Foundation year. However, they expressed concerns. apparently, most people enter the Foundation year having already studied Maths/Physics. And there will of course, always be that fear and unknown element. "Can I do this? What if I fail?" I'm unhappy where I am now, but at least I know I can get this degree...eugh.

I wanted to seek advice from current/former students who have been on this year. How did you find it, what was your educational background? What was your timetable like, where are the lectures, etc?

Thank you!

Reply 1

HandmadeTurnip

I'm doing the foundation year at the moment, planning to go on to do Electrical and Electronic Engineering. I was like you and hadn't studied Maths or Physics at A-Level (all my subjects were arts/humanities) so I decided to teach myself A-Level Maths and sit the exams at a local school before starting the foundation year.

So far it's not as difficult or intense as I expected/was told it would be. I have noticed, however, that I'm able to spend considerably less time on the Maths side of things because a lot of it overlaps with what I did at A-Level. I'm finding the Physics a lot more challenging though and I'm not sure how well I'd cope if both subjects were completely new to me. I don't think it would be impossible, just that it would require a lot more work. The pass requirements for the engineering subjects (I think they're all the same) are reasonably low after all; only 50% for Physics and 60% for Maths.

In terms of timetable, last semester I had around 8 or 9 hours of lectures and 6 hours of tutorials. I think that's going to go up slightly for next semester though. All the lectures and tutorials are on the Sackville St. campus, all of my lectures have been in the Renold building so far.

If you have any more questions, let me know.

University of Manchester

Manchester

Reply 2

Origami Bullets

Turnip has given you a fantastic answer, but you might like to ask the uni whether, if you finished first year biomed and then did the foundation year but didn't like it / failed it, whether it would be possible to return to start second year biomed.

It should be noted that if you were to fail / drop out after foundation year, you'd have problems with your student finance, as you'd have to fund the first year of any new course yourself, upfront, with no access to student finance.

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Reply 3

UnbreakableDimmy

Thanks very much to you both. Suppose my enduring worry is just not having done A-level Maths/Physics and whether even the Foundation year would be too much...and I really want to stay in Manchester.