Mech eng: Imperial or Oxbridge????

Year 12s: what will be the first way you research your future options? >>

If you know that you want to do Mechanical Engineering, then neither Oxford or Cambridge has a specific course (although you will probably cover a lot of it), and you'll only specialize towards pure mechanical engineering towards the final year(s). Imperial does have a Mechanical Engineering course, so if you're sure this is your course, it might be more appropriate.

Solution? Apply to both and see what offers you get before you have to decide.

Reply 2

Nikuhiru

I think it depends on what style of teaching you'll react to. I'm not studying Mech Eng, however one of my best friends is studying Engineering at Oxford while I'm doing Aeronautical Engineering at Imperial. We tend to talk a lot and see what each course is like, so we've compared work loads/what we learn etc to get a better idea of what it's like at the other Uni.

What I've found is that the content is going to be similar at the end of the day. I mean fluid mechanics is going to be fluid mechanics no matter where you learn it - the content has to be slightly similar in order to get the course accredited by the IMechE and the other bodies that accredit the course at these Universities. However, the teaching styles are different. At Oxford, it seems to me that the content is a bit more spoon-fed than it is at Imperial (or at least on my course - remember, I'm talking from my perspective) in that you have more tutorials with fewer people and that is where you tend to learn most of your content, whereas at Imperial it tends to be that you're taught in your lectures and your tutorials are just to clarify the little bits that you may be unsure of. I also found that there seems to be a higher level of self studying and self reliance at Imperial than at Oxford, which suits me a lot better as I tend to study well on my own and I enjoy having to force myself to derive theories/equations so that I understand them.

Another thing that you need to look at is whether you want to jump into Mechanical Engineering straight away or dip your hand into other forms of Engineering which is what you would do at Oxbridge. You also need to look at where you want to study - visit Imperial, Oxford and Cambridge and see what you think of each place and it's Engineering facilities. Take into account that living costs in London are higher than everywhere else (although don't go by money alone - you will find a way to make it through) and also that London is a lot busier than Oxbridge. I found that while walking around in Oxford, I got frustrated by the relaxed pace of everyone. I found that Oxford and Cambridge are in their little enclosed bubbles in terms of the general student population (again, personal opinion!).

The best thing to do would be to read up on each course, see what the syllabus is like for each Uni and then visit them all to get an idea of everything!