Exeter vs Birmingham for Mechanical Engineering

I expect someone will be along in a minute to tell you why you should go to Exeter..

Birmingham.

Because Exeter is miles from anywhere and the only thing its got going for it is one nice 'student hub' building.

Thanks for the reply mate, I am aware that Birmingham is a much bigger university and city with loads more to do, I'm just struggling because I'm also a big surfer, and Exeter is great for that

Hi @tobythegreat,

Congrats on receiving your offers! That's a tricky one, I often find that a lot of it comes down to gut feeling, which is why it's really useful to visit campus in person if you can.

Have you had a chance to visit either of the Unis again for an offer-holder visit day? It's a really useful way of refreshing your memory of the Unis whilst getting a more in depth view of student life and the course.

Happy to answer any questions - Molly

Hi Molly, thanks for the reply . I've actually been to offer holder days for both universities, all I'm really looking for is an insight from students currently at the universities, so could you tell me a bit about how many hours you tend to work per day/week? Also I am curious about employment opportunities, do you feel that you're headed in the right direction career-wise at Birmingham?

Birmingham is far stronger for engineering. Exeter is pretty mediocre for it (for the main campus) and is not especially well known for engineering (outside of the Cornwall campus and mining engineering and related areas). The level of incoming knowledge among students is pretty low according to one of my lecturers there and so they don't end up teaching some content that would normally be taught in first year until third year...

Also Exeter is still miles away from any beach where people surf at, so it's not like you can just finish up your lectures and then go surfing. The surf society just organised trips on weekends now and then (mostly at the end of term/reading week as I recall - you always saw them gathered at the bottom of the hill with the surf gear getting it into/onto the minivan they were using) that I noticed when I was there, because there was no practical way to get to any kind of beach except renting a minivan and taking a bunch of the students there as a weekend outing. You would likely have pretty similar experiences in this regard at Birmingham.

The Cornwall campus might be more favourable for that though as I believe it is a lot closer to accessibly coastline, and is stronger for certain kinds of engineering to boot. But if you've applied for the main (Streatham) campus, I can't see much in justifying it over Birmingham even if you are into surfing a lot.

Thank you mate, I really appreciate your input. I am aware that surfing beaches aren't exactly on your doorstep in Exeter, but it's around an hour's journey compared to around 4 hours coming from Birmingham. It's worth noting I also applied to Swansea which is much closer to surfing locations than Exeter, I'm just not sure about career prospects compared to Exeter and Birmingham. I did look at various league tables (subject and overall) for Exeter and Birmingham, and they seem to rank very similarly, with Swansea not too far off both of them either, however rankings obviously aren't the whole picture.

Also, I know that university prestige doesn't guarantee a successful career, but the reason I am concerned about it is that I am not sure what career I want to go into yet. In terms of engineering I am interested in the automotive/motorsport and energy sectors, but I am also keen on investment banking or consultancy, which are notorious for being extremely competitive and selective with universities. Do you think the difference between Exeter (or maybe even Swansea) is significant enough to make Birmingham is the obvious choice?

Tbh for investment banking none of them are great choices. Birmingham and Exeter is semi target at best, and Swansea isn't really anyhig in that realm. Your options are basically LSE, Imperial, UCL, Oxbridge, and Warwick for that (of which only Imperial and Oxbridge are considered to have especially string engineering courses).

The exeter Cornwall campus has a fair bit of relation to the energy sector in the engineering department, since it has all the old Camborne school of mines mining engineering/engineerin geology courses for petrochemical related areas and a renewable energy engineering course as well.

The exeter main campus has some research in hydroelectric and wind power stuff as I recall. It has nothing in the Motorsport area specifically other than a formula student team (which is pretty widespread and not unique to Exeter). I do recall they mentioned the possibility of working at mercedes for a placement year but I don't recall anyone actually landing a position there from my cohort at least.

Thank you mate, I really appreciate your input. I am aware that surfing beaches aren't exactly on your doorstep in Exeter, but it's around an hour's journey compared to around 4 hours coming from Birmingham. It's worth noting I also applied to Swansea which is much closer to surfing locations than Exeter, I'm just not sure about career prospects compared to Exeter and Birmingham. I did look at various league tables (subject and overall) for Exeter and Birmingham, and they seem to rank very similarly, with Swansea not too far off both of them either, however rankings obviously aren't the whole picture.

Also, I know that university prestige doesn't guarantee a successful career, but the reason I am concerned about it is that I am not sure what career I want to go into yet. In terms of engineering I am interested in the automotive/motorsport and energy sectors, but I am also keen on investment banking or consultancy, which are notorious for being extremely competitive and selective with universities. Do you think the difference between Exeter (or maybe even Swansea) is significant enough to make Birmingham is the obvious choice?

To introduce myself – I'm Joao. In my final year studying BSc Economics at Surrey University, I am working as a Campus Ambassador for JP Morgan. I recently finished my one-year industrial placement as an Economist for the British Government's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). I also had the opportunity to work as a Private Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Biosecurity.

There's more than one way of getting a graduate job at an investment bank. The route you choose will depend partly upon the area of the bank you want to get into. My advice is to apply for internships during your bachelor's degree and get an offer of a full-time job when you graduate. Also, if I were you, I would consider doing a placement year. The placement provides students with a unique opportunity to gain skills specific to their subject or industry of choice and the employability skills required for real-life work, so I would suggest applying for a sandwich degree.

This is the standard method of getting the first job in an investment bank. While you're at university, you need to complete as many investment banking internships as possible, starting in your first year. In Europe, these first-year internships are known as 'spring weeks.' Suppose you impress the banks' recruiters during these short first-year internships. In that case, you will often be guaranteed a place to come back for ten weeks during the summer holiday of your second year (a so-called "summer internship" or "summer analyst program.") And if you impress again during these summer internships, you should be offered a full-time job when you graduate.

Joao
Economics