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Loughborough University - Engineering

I am weighing up the options on which uni to join in the autumn, and would just like to know how's the engineering course?

I've heard a lot of good things about engineering at Loughborough, would any one recommend Loughborough over Warwick?

How are people finding it?

How's the university as a whole?

Any regrets?

Good/bad points about it?


Any sort of help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!
Reply 1
I'm a 3rd year Mechanical Engineer, so you can PM me questions - hopefully it'll email me.

I would say Engineering is never as anyone expects it, its possibly the weirdest subject. With that in mind, the difference in university isn't that important and is merely represented in the character of the university. The different departments in Lough engineering have a very different feel, due to have different management and styles.

Wolfson is possibly the most 'traditional' in the sense that its relatively the same course for the last 50 years, and a good number of the lecturers and tutors took the exact same course (mech).

Being a campus university is something you'll never have the chance to experience again - it is unique. There are so many advantages I won't list them here, but it is a massive selling point.

Any regrets would be I wouldn't study Mech, I'd do something in computer science although that's just me. No other regrets really other than the usual 'work harder earlier', although I managed to get pretty ill in first year.
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Loughborough's renowned for it's engineering prowess. I'm a 2nd year Civil Engineer (on the 4-year Master's course) and would very much recommend it. Engineering courses, however, are a lot more intensive than most others at Loughborough, in that you'll find that your flatmate doing Sport Science will only have about 3 or 4 pieces of coursework and 3 exams each semester, where you'll be doing about 7 pieces of coursework and 4 or 5 exams. You won't have to do as much self-learning from textbooks as they do however. A whole section of campus is entirely dedicated to Maths, Physics and Engineering as well, with very high-standard facilities (although it looks a bit grey and dingy from the outside) but each department is distinct from the others (ie, each building is dedicated to Civil, Auto/Aero, Mechanical, Electrical, Chemical, Materials, Maths, Physics). Warwick's an amazing university and is renowned for it's Maths courses, but you won't have the Loughborough experience there, which is something very special indeed. My only regrets are not putting in enough work into my course before exams come around and staying in halls for 2nd year.
Reply 3
Original post by thenickoftime
Loughborough's renowned for it's engineering prowess. I'm a 2nd year Civil Engineer (on the 4-year Master's course) and would very much recommend it. Engineering courses, however, are a lot more intensive than most others at Loughborough, in that you'll find that your flatmate doing Sport Science will only have about 3 or 4 pieces of coursework and 3 exams each semester, where you'll be doing about 7 pieces of coursework and 4 or 5 exams. You won't have to do as much self-learning from textbooks as they do however. A whole section of campus is entirely dedicated to Maths, Physics and Engineering as well, with very high-standard facilities (although it looks a bit grey and dingy from the outside) but each department is distinct from the others (ie, each building is dedicated to Civil, Auto/Aero, Mechanical, Electrical, Chemical, Materials, Maths, Physics). Warwick's an amazing university and is renowned for it's Maths courses, but you won't have the Loughborough experience there, which is something very special indeed. My only regrets are not putting in enough work into my course before exams come around and staying in halls for 2nd year.


I'd disagree SO MUCH for Mech. If we have 20 hours of lectures for modules, we'd have another 120 we need to do learning everything from textbooks and other sources. There is no way you could pass the course without it.

So it turns a 40 hour contact time week into a 90 hour in 2nd year (no joke). Aero/Auto is potentially worse.
Reply 4
Original post by thenickoftime
Loughborough's renowned for it's engineering prowess.


Indeed so. I graduated from Loughborough in 2010 having done the 5 year M.Eng+DIS course, cracking course, cracking uni. There where ups and downs, as well as other good options, but I would have no qualms recommending it to others and infact having done so my cousin is now due to join to do the same next year.


Daniel
Reply 5
Thought I'd pop in and ask around - I have actually received unconditional offers for Aero eng from Loughborough and Bath but it is really difficult to decide between these two unis! The thing is, as an international students I don't get to go for Open Days so I don't really know how the departments and facilities are. Did you guys have any experience with the aero/auto department?

Thanks in advance for any replies.
(edited 10 years ago)
Reply 6
Original post by joelwong
Thought I'd pop in and ask around - I have actually received unconditional offers for Aero eng from Loughborough and Bath but it is really difficult to decide between these two unis! The thing is, as an international students I don't get to go for Open Days so I don't really know how the departments and facilities are. Did you guys have any experience with the aero/auto department?

Thanks in advance for any replies.


Aero/Auto has the newest facilities in engineering, very new building. Loads of room, very flashy. Its not massive though. Because all the engineering facilties are in one giant area they all share resources, ie the massive computer labs in wolfson and chem, the lecture theatres all around etc.
Reply 7
Original post by dogie
Aero/Auto has the newest facilities in engineering, very new building. Loads of room, very flashy. Its not massive though. Because all the engineering facilties are in one giant area they all share resources, ie the massive computer labs in wolfson and chem, the lecture theatres all around etc.

Thanks for the quick answers! Just wondering - do you mech eng students share lectures with the aero students? Are there many aero students in the uni?

I've noticed you are a third year, have you been on an industrial placement?
Reply 8
Original post by dhutch
Indeed so. I graduated from Loughborough in 2010 having done the 5 year M.Eng+DIS course, cracking course, cracking uni. There where ups and downs, as well as other good options, but I would have no qualms recommending it to others and infact having done so my cousin is now due to join to do the same next year.


Daniel


Hi Daniel,
I am considering Loughborough for Msc. in Renewable Engineering. I looked through the modules, they seem a little bit mixed with Electrical Engineering. Any general thoughts about the mechanical engineering department? Are they giving you support for job seeking after graduation?


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Reply 9
Original post by joelwong
Thanks for the quick answers! Just wondering - do you mech eng students share lectures with the aero students? Are there many aero students in the uni?

I've noticed you are a third year, have you been on an industrial placement?


I didn't do a placement as quite honestly I don't need the work experience. I work every summer instead and it saved me a year. I've lived with 1st year aero and auto engineers and you'll never ever see them with mech. Its a different department and the two are big enough to have their own generic modules (maths) tailored to their course.

Aero and auto is really a combined course for 2 years, with specialisations and so they tend to get taught together. I think there is about 150-200 combined but I am not sure.

Original post by bonibon
Hi Daniel,
I am considering Loughborough for Msc. in Renewable Engineering. I looked through the modules, they seem a little bit mixed with Electrical Engineering. Any general thoughts about the mechanical engineering department? Are they giving you support for job seeking after graduation?


Wolfson is the most prestigious, the highest grossing and the flagship department. If you want an engineering based job, you'll have one way before you graduate - there are more jobs offered to Wolfson than there are students.
Original post by dogie
Wolfson is the most prestigious, the highest grossing and the flagship department. If you want an engineering based job, you'll have one way before you graduate - there are more jobs offered to Wolfson than there are students.


From a non-biased point of view, If you had to choose between Loughborough and Surrey, which one would you pick.

Surrey doesnt have practical exams at all however loughborough does? from your experience are these difficult. Also there is a lot of coursework at surrey 74% in yr1, 40% yr2, 69% yr3 All higher than the percentage coursework at loughborough. Do you prefer coursework to exams?
Reply 11
Original post by Quantum_Phantom
From a non-biased point of view, If you had to choose between Loughborough and Surrey, which one would you pick.

Surrey doesnt have practical exams at all however loughborough does? from your experience are these difficult. Also there is a lot of coursework at surrey 74% in yr1, 40% yr2, 69% yr3 All higher than the percentage coursework at loughborough. Do you prefer coursework to exams?



Its hard for me to recommend Surrey as I am biased, however quite honestly I've never heard of Surrey being a contender.

I've never had a practical exam other than in some basic programming modules where you can bring all your notes, examples, previous code, tutorial question and answers and even use the internet! I can't recall hearing about any other type of 'practical' exam in engineering.

Everyone on my course prefers exams. The problem with coursework is you can hand in a 'perfect' piece, put in 10x as much work than required but because its coursework you're soft capped. No one is ever going to mark coursework about 80-85% because there is no right answer.

Courses inherently coursework heavy like English end up having 80% of their students come in at 55-65% because the different between horrible, okay and excellent doesn't translate well into marks.

On the other hand exams create a wider spread because you CAN get 100% and you CAN get 10%. The only bad thing about exams is you can screw up something you know and receive a lower mark than coursework.

tldr: coursework is more consistent but typically muddies everyones marks towards a meh average
Reply 12
Original post by bonibon
Hi Daniel,
I am considering Loughborough for Msc. in Renewable Engineering. I looked through the modules, they seem a little bit mixed with Electrical Engineering. Any general thoughts about the mechanical engineering department? Are they giving you support for job seeking after graduation?

Cant really comment on the renewable energy course, although I did do a module in energy system analysis and a few others that where taught by elec eng, and they worked.

Cant really comment on the support for job seeking as I feel into a job* on graduation based on my placement year, but the support for finding the placement was good.

*they literally asked me to come to an interview, I went to it , they gave me the job, three years on im still with them and have just been seconding to india for 6months to support a project at our factory there.


Daniel
Reply 13
Original post by dhutch
Cant really comment on the renewable energy course, although I did do a module in energy system analysis and a few others that where taught by elec eng, and they worked.

Cant really comment on the support for job seeking as I feel into a job* on graduation based on my placement year, but the support for finding the placement was good.

*they literally asked me to come to an interview, I went to it , they gave me the job, three years on im still with them and have just been seconding to india for 6months to support a project at our factory there.


Daniel



Hi Daniel,
How about the social status of the school? Did you enjoy living in Loughborough? Did you stayed in the halls? Or which area would you recommend for accommodation besides the halls?

Also maybe you know the teachers of Electronics, Electrics and System Engineering department some of which are:
Course director:
Prof Ralph Gottschalg, others are as follows:
Dr. Gianfranco Claudio, Prof. Simon Watson, Dr. Richard Blanchard, Dr. Murray Thomson, Dr.Tom Betts.

Any advice is appreciated.
(edited 10 years ago)
Reply 14
Original post by bonibon
Hi Daniel,
How about the social status of the school? Did you enjoy living in Loughborough? Did you stayed in the halls? Or which area would you recommend for accommodation besides the halls?

]Also maybe you know the teachers of Electronics, Electrics and System Engineering department some of which are:
Course director: Prof Ralph Gottschalg, others are as follows:Dr. Gianfranco Claudio, Prof. Simon Watson, Dr. Richard Blanchard, Dr. Murray Thomson, Dr.Tom Betts.
Any advice is appreciated.
Social status of the school... Well I made some good friends in my coursemates, many of which I'm still friends with now, in common with the industry as a whole it is male dominated but you will get that anyway, many a good evening out in the Union/Town had, bard/clubs obviously but also quieter evenings in a pub, pool/snooker house, etc, as well as weekends mountain biking, messing about with cars, whatever your/our hobbies are. As per any other department or university!

I was in Cayley, 15meals per week catered, ensuite, which I enjoyed. Wouldnt want to be catered or in halls for more than my first year, but as someone who cooks to live rather than lives to cook if gave me one less thing to do, and halls is a great place to live for a freasher, plus you retain the the option to cook at weekends etc. Ensuite room costs more but is bigger, i kept my mountain bike in it most of the year.

Didn't have any of the lectures listed, but im sure there all fine. Throughout five years (maybe 30 lectures) we only had about three 'bad' ones and even they where good enough to learn the stuff and pass.


Daniel
Reply 15
I applied for a Renewable Energy Systems Technology (MSc) course. I believe the course is run by the electrical and electronic eng school. Any thoughts about the course or the school?

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