Engineering at Durham

Durham is consistent ranked as the best in the country for engineering, and hasn't been outside the top 3 or 4 in the subject for years and years and years, making the course very very desirable, and extremely competitive, last cycle 503 out of 1114 applications got made an offer (45%) of which only 319 ended up actually coming (they may have gone somewhere else out of choice, or not met the grades), 45% is just below the university average (which itself is below 50%).

source: http://www.dur.ac.uk/undergraduate/apply/statistics/

This is what they say about entry requirements for engineering:
"The expected minimum entry requirement for the Engineering MEng is normally three GCE Advanced Level passes at grades A*AA, to include Mathematics and Physics, but excluding General Studies and Critical Thinking."
taken from here : http://www.dur.ac.uk/ecs/ecs_undergraduate/undergraduate/entry_requirements/
you can look around there for more answers.

Hope that helped

Durham is consistent ranked as the best in the country for engineering, and hasn't been outside the top 3 or 4 in the subject for years and years and years, making the course very very desirable, and extremely competitive, last cycle 503 out of 1114 applications got made an offer (45%) of which only 319 ended up actually coming (they may have gone somewhere else out of choice, or not met the grades), 45% is just below the university average (which itself is below 50%).

source: http://www.dur.ac.uk/undergraduate/apply/statistics/

This is what they say about entry requirements for engineering:
"The expected minimum entry requirement for the Engineering MEng is normally three GCE Advanced Level passes at grades A*AA, to include Mathematics and Physics, but excluding General Studies and Critical Thinking."
taken from here : http://www.dur.ac.uk/ecs/ecs_undergraduate/undergraduate/entry_requirements/
you can look around there for more answers.

Hope that helped

I would like to know how hard it is to get into engineering at Durham? As there is only one course is it especially competitive? I will be applying for aeronautical engineering elsewhere but the prospect of 2 years of general and specialising later is also appealing so I am likely to apply to Durham aswell. It would also be great to hear from anyone who has done engineering and what their experience was like.

Any help is greatly appreciated

Great, thanks for the help-much appreciated, I wonder also if my personal statement had an aeronautical slant, would it put me at a disadvantage? As it is an application for general engineering, as i have heard that durham put a slightly heavier emphasis on the personal statement

Best in the country?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/table/2011/may/17/university-guide-engineering-general-

Reckons it's 15th, not top

http://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/league-tables/rankings?s=General+Engineering
13th here.

You should know better than to place all your faith in league tables which are more often than not, incorrect.

So have you got any evidence to back up the claim made any 'better' evidence?

First of all I would like to point that I was not in any way seeking to defend Durham's engineering prowess because a) I don't care and b) I know nothing about Durham's engineering department. Secondly, your clinging to the league tables like they're Gospel is frankly laughable.

Well let's look at the Guardian league table first shall we?

1. Notice that many universities have missing data. For example, Oxford in this case has no data on Student course satisfaction, Student teaching satisfaction and Student feedback satisfaction. How can a ranking be calculated accurately when so much data is missing?

2. Notice some of the data used to calculate the ranking score. A student's entry tariff is not necessarily related to the quality of a department.

3. Incomplete table - due to a lack of data many universities are not included.

4. Factual errors - at first glance Exeter, Leeds, Imperial and Leicester do not offer a General Engineering programme yet they are still included

Now let's look at the Complete University Guide table.

1. Again notice the missing data, Surrey's score in this case is only calculated using two pieces of data.

2. Again notice the data used to calculate the scores.

3. Factual errors - at first glance Nottingham, Surrey, Imperial and Cardiff do not offer a General Engineering programme yet they are still included.

Also notice the difference in ranking for several institutions between the two tables. Edinburgh Napier: Guardian Ranking - 11, Complete University Guide Ranking - 43. Bit odd that?

I could have added more detail but I got bored...

As a Durham graduate I would sum up my experience as not pleasant, emotionally or academically. The science and engineering departments are well known for subjecting their students to courses that are rigorous but I can tell you that they are not engaging, they make you hate your subject, constant stress, unhelpful academics, emotional torment and the feeling of banging your head against a brick wall (trying to beat the system doesn't work in Durham). The passion you have for your subject at the start of freshers quickly disappears and by the end of the first year you constantly question why did I pick to study here! Do not let the league tables and the apparent Durham name trick you! During my degree Durham, it did its best to constantly put me down academically and a lot of my friends decided to give up and basically what was the point of trying. Lecturers did not want to help you and we were constantly told that we were not good enough. Before my final exam a lecturer told us in the revision session not to bother trying to answer his question as not one of us will get above 50% in it and from the people who did that question they barely passed it. What is the point of learning and engaging with a course if the lecturers and institute are just there to play a numbers game? Another lecturer liked to point out that all of our grades were also scaled so it was a bell curve so don't be fooled. If I had my time again I would careful think about other peoples experiences of Durham before making a decision. So sum up, Durham engineering department is a constant battle, an emotional battlefield and an academic demotivating environment.