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Warwick, Imperial or UCL for an undecided (mechanical) engineer?

Hey everyone, I was really lucky to get the following offers:
- UCL: Engineering (Mechanical with Business Finance)
- Warwick: Engineering and Business Studies
- Imperial: Civil Engineering (hopefully Mechanical Engineering)

About myself: I want to study engineering because I love physics, maths and technology in general but I'm neither sure if I want to be an engineer later nor which field to specialise in. I've heard many engineering graduates go into banking later, which I might do too.

I'm now having a really hard time to decide. What speaks for UCL is that I'd be taking the finance classes at LSE and graduate with an MEng. On the other hand, I heard UCL's mechanical engineering department was quite old and not as reputable as the rest of the university.
Warwick's course is general engineering during the first two years and I'd only later have to decide which field to specialise in or I could even change to Warwick Business School for my third year. However, this would mean that I only end up with a BA or BSc.
Imperial is probably the best choice for pure engineering (and the most prestigious from what I've read), but being an idiot I applied for the wrong course and now hope to get them to change my offer to Mechanical Engineering. Assuming I manage to do that, what would you recommend?

Thanks in advance
Reply 1
For any profession, Imperial College will give you the best chances. Its engineering courses are very prestigious and you will have excellent prospects in not only engineering but also in other areas like finance.
UCL has a good overall reputation as well (although maybe slightly less than Imperial) but the engineering department is quite bad. Same with Warwick. Warwick Business School is strong, its engineering courses not so.
Mechanical engineering is a very broad course and you cannot go wrong with choosing Imperial in the aspects you mentioned.
Good luck with your decision
Hey, bit of a late reply but thought I'd put down my thoughts on the off chance you haven't made a decision or for the benefit of anyone else reading this thread.

Well done on getting offers from three great unis. If all goes well you'll get a great degree, and will be set up well whether you decide to stay in engineering or chase the money. You're right, Imperial has the best rep for engineering, probably followed by Warwick imo (I went to Warwick, so I'm biased!)

I was in a similar position to you when I applied (a few more years ago than I care to remember) - I had the interest, but wasn't sure what to specialise in or whether I wanted to do it as a career.

I chose to go to Warwick as (as you note) the structure of the course allows you to put off choosing your specialisation until the third year. This suited me down to the ground as I had no idea what I wanted to do at 17. There was (and still is, I guess) quite a lot of business content in the first two years of the course at warwick (may not be the case at the other), so you'll get a feel for whether you enjoy the business side of it vs the "real" engineering. Note that this will be taught by WMG (not to be confused with WBS). I found the quality of the WMG lectures really good, although it may be more engineering specific (lean manufacturing, supply chain, for example) than what you get at LSE.

If I were you I'd have a goodd think about whether you want to spend the next 3/4 years of your life in London, or in a campus in the West Midlands. Your lifestyle will probably be incredibly different (not necessarily better/worse) at Warwick compared to London so that would be the aspect I would focus on for this decision.

Good luck!
(edited 7 years ago)
Definitely not UCL

I'd say Imperial is your best bet. Focus on one thing for now
Reply 4
@Student403


Edit: you got here like lightning
Original post by aymanzayedmannan
@Student403


Edit: you got here like lightning


Thanks for the tag! Perhaps should change avi to The Flash :biggrin:

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