Background reading for Civil Engineering interview?

Possible gave too much away in the title of this thread, thus leaving me nothing to say in it, but just incase you missed it....

What books/articles/etc would you recomend I read to prepare for my Civil Engineering/ Civil and Enviromental Engineering interview at Cardiff? Or what have you read for yours? Or have you already had an interview, what did they ask?

Anything you've got to say on the subject really, hit me with it.

Thank you in advance, Penny.

Reply 1

<A-S-H-I-Q-U-E>

Unless you're going to attend Oxbridge interviews, for engineering the interviews are usually very informal in other unis (as far as i know). In most cases, such informal interviews give you opportunity to explore the unis or even ask questions, if you have any.

Reply 2

EPD

Yeah, I think you'll be fine. I did read this, but didn't mention it at any of my interviews (I forgot :redface:

), and got offers from all of them except Cambridge. They don't mind - they just want a chat about why you want to do Civil Engineering, basically. They want to make sure you're enthusiastic. By all means do read things and talk about them, but it's not necessary.

Reply 3

bluenoxid

I fully reccomend the bood EPD suggested. It was a great read.

I cannot see your Cardiff interview being tough

Reply 4

Arminius

yes. I would agree, the books good. But i think its probably too late to fake interest. They will ask you about your motivations for doin the course, time may be better spent comparing the course content with different unis, analysing your own reasons for choosing it, why you took your set of a-levels, constructive things you may do in your spare time. Genereal itnerest in science and engineering literature.

Reply 5

Trixxy

For god's sake don't mention Lego. Read the book above, its pretty good and maybe look into the different disciplines.

Reply 6

mmmmmmmmmmmm

I read copies of my Dad's New Civil Engineer every so often. Contains some current news & current projects and can be really interesting sometimes (eg. 2012 Olympics project). He gets the magazine posted to him, but there's no reason you can't read the website for free :smile:

Reply 7

daman982

Or....you could do what i did and say that you can't make it to the interview, and still get an offer! However, I didn't particularly want to go to Cardiff, if you do it's probrably best to go to the interview! :smile:

Reply 8

PennyLePope

Thanks for all that, I shall read the book and look at New Civil Engineer.

I'm not to worried really, it's just you hear all this talk about 'back ground reading' and I didn't really have an thing to say 'Ah well yes I saw/read....'.

Thanks Penny