Mechanical engineering - Exeter reputation

What is the reputation of the engineering dept at Exeter ? How does it compare with say Loughboroug? Does it matter that a year in industry is not offered? What is the teaching and facilities like ? Thanks for the advice.

My honest opinion after four years here. It's really not very good.

The range of content that you are taught is pretty decent, and there's been a lot of interesting topics covered during my time here, but the standard of teaching is pretty bad. They've gone down the route that a lot of people have, where they've filled their teaching staff with people who are incredibly intelligent and fantastic in their field but who either dislike teaching or are simply not capable of doing it well. The majority of my lecturers here have done nothing more than stand at the front of read from a powerpoint presentation, and a lot of them have clearly disliked interacting with students to the point where if you do have problems it's nigh on impossible to get them to even see you to give you some help with the material.

The facilities in the department are another area that is decent but not great, the workshops are alright although can get ridiculously busy at times and getting the machine that you need can be a nightmare, although they do have some cool CNC machinery that you'll get to play around with at times and the workshop staff are probably some of the most useful people in the department, almost all are really friendly and helpful.

From what I've heard from friends it does seem that Civil engineering is a bit better than this, the lecturers seem to be of a higher standard and everybody I know who does it has really enjoyed it.

However if you're planning on doing mechanical or electronic then I'd say that there are much better choices out there at a similar grade requirement.