Natural Sciences or Engineering Degree - Cambridge

Hi,

I am stuck between applying for NatSci or Engineering at Cambridge.
I am doing Maths, Further Maths, Physics & Chemistry A Levels and am predicted 3/4 A*s. I like Maths the best, especially the core and mechanic modules. I also like the materials and quantum aspects of physics, aswell as physical and inorganic aspects of chemistry. I am not overly keen on electronics though however, nor the organic parts of chemistry.

I am drawn towards Natural Sciences as it keeps my options open, so I can do Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Materials, and specialise in one of them, or even switch to Chemical Engineering in the 2nd year. My only issue is with the career prospects, as it seems to be that you would go into teaching, research or finance.

Engineering interests me due to the maths involved, but I am not a very 'hands-on' person, preferring to design things on a computer, rather than make and build things. I have heard that alot of what you do in an engineering degree is hands-on making things, rather than calculations and designing on a computer (which is what I would like to do).

In terms of the maths involved in engineering, and in physics, what is the difference? I really like calculus and applying it to solve problems, but don;t want to be learning useless things like why proving that 1=0 (in a maths degree).

I would very much appreciate help as I am stuck as to which degree to do.

I'd look at doing maths or maths and physics if I were you. There's plenty of applied maths available.

I'm not interested in pure maths, eg proofs and the like, but like using maths for appliacations, so physics or engineering seem more appropriate.

You said you liked core modules of maths? Obvious continuation of those is pure maths. But that aside, I did say maths and physics too, which allows for pretty much no pure after 1st year I think.
As for your worries on natsci though, I don't think career prospects are a problem.

Edit-wrt what you've said though, I think you're not quite right about what goes on in a maths degree.

A Maths degree on its own doesn't have any application is what I'm saying (except stats which doesn't interest me)

You said you liked core modules of maths? Obvious continuation of those is pure maths. But that aside, I did say maths and physics too, which allows for pretty much no pure after 1st year I think.
As for your worries on natsci though, I don't think career prospects are a problem.

Edit-wrt what you've said though, I think you're not quite right about what goes on in a maths degree.

Pure maths at A-level is not the same as pure maths at uni. A-level Pure is more about mathematical methods rather than the more abstract style of maths done at university, which is more about proving theorems building up from careful definitions rather than doing lots of questions involving various techniques in calculus.

Pure maths at A-level is not the same as pure maths at uni. A-level Pure is more about mathematical methods rather than the more abstract style of maths done at university, which is more about proving theorems building up from careful definitions rather than doing lots of questions involving various techniques in calculus.

Hi, I've just finished my first year of engineering at Cambridge and I'll be starting Chemical Engineering in October.

You said you're not keen on electronics. The Cambridge course has an entire paper on electronics (one of the four papers at the end of first year) split into 3 sections: Electromagnetics, Linear Circuits (transisters, amplifiers...) and digital circuits (logic gates, microprocessors) so if you don't like electronics then you won't like a quarter of the Engineering course but the sort of electronics you do at school doesn't resemble university electronics at all I've found, it's been my favourite module really and it does involve a lot of maths, rather than the frustration of trying to put circuits together on a breadboard which was what our GCSE electronics consisted of.

You use an awful lot of A level maths for Engineering - one of our end of year papers is Maths and we need to use Argand Diagrams, trig substitutions and hyperbolic trig, calculus (quite a lot of it), matricies etc... and I found that fun because I also liked A level maths. My favourite modules were the pure ones too (C3, C4, FP2 in particular) and it is that sort of maths that we use a lot.

The other modules are Thermofluids, Mechanics (a lot of graphical methods), Structures, Materials and Computing. Our Materials course goes into a fair amount of detail but if that is your main interest then I believe the Natural Scientists go into more detail than us - with them focusing more on the molecular side of it and the engineers looking more from a macroscopic point of view.

I believe Chemical Engineering has a very large amount of inorganic chemistry (I haven't studied it yet so I don't know) and I chose ChemEng because I could use all 4 of my A-Levels (Further Maths, Physics and Chem).

You said you're not much of a 'hands-on' person. We don't need to use our hands much at all for first year engineering, apart from a couple of pieces of coursework (although as long as you turn up and do a reasonable attempt then everyone gets full marks in the coursework so this isn't an issue). The lab sessions has a lot of CAD and Computing. We need to learn the basics of Matlab and C++ and there are 2 questions on the end of the maths paper in C++ in first year so it does tend to be more theory and computer work than actually building things.

If you're considering doing engineering for 4 years, you can drop electronics after the second year and choose the modules you're most interested in for third year, but judging by what you've said, you'd really enjoy the maths part of our course.

The NatScis also do similar types of maths I believe, although that judgement is just from seeing one sheet of a first year exam paper so its probably better if you ask someone else.

I applied for Chem Eng but they are very flexible and accomodating if you change your mind about what you want to do. They said that if we wish to continue with Engineering then we could tell our Director of Studied the day before second year lectures begin and they'll probably let you switch if there is space, and if you have the required 4 weeks of industrial experience. I assume it is the same if you do Natural Sciences. They also let people change their minds halfway through the year, from both subjects. In around February time they have a ChemEng talk in both departments which basically advertises the subject and tries to get people who didn't apply for it to join the subject, so you get the chance to hear what it is about and ask lots of questions so you don't have to commit to one subject or other when you reply. One of my NatSci friends is even switching to Computer Science, and a Historian friend switching to Education!

If you are unsure, try reading 'Chemical Processes'. They will probably have it in all of the college libraries once you arrive and I read it over Christmas to make sure ChemEng was the right choice.

Why made you apply for chem eng as opposed to gen eng or natsci?


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With regard to slumpy - There are just as many engineers as mathematicians working on codebreaking, more engineers model fluid dynamics, do rocket science and again, probably just as many engineers work in finance as mathematical quants. Source - my peers who graduated with me.