What did you do to get a first in engineering?
Electronic Engineering to be exact but any type of engineering is fine. Did you do any extra reading? Or were the things taught in lectures enough? How much did you study? Any tips?
Chem Eng 3rd year student here, it is very hard and quite demanding. However -
Its as simple as this: Do the work, and you will be rewarded. I didn't live out and had to commute. I found that I didn't learn much in lectures and preferred to read lecture slides at home, so i skipped a lot of days and just did the work at home. I attended most tutorials and made sure I had completed every respective tutorial for each module for each week. Engineering is a lot of work. You have to memorise a lot of derivations and develop problem solving skills well beyond what you've done in your A-Levels. It will devour your life, but I found that engineering requires the time commitment and the ability to discipline yourself to do a lot of work per week. You have to account for the difficulty by really putting the work in.
From what I've done so far, I didn't need to do any extra reading, the lectures were enough. I know this is not the case for design project though (2nd semester, year 3). Not sure if you do a design project as part of an electronics engineering degree.
I hope what I've said is applicable to your course.
Its as simple as this: Do the work, and you will be rewarded. I didn't live out and had to commute. I found that I didn't learn much in lectures and preferred to read lecture slides at home, so i skipped a lot of days and just did the work at home. I attended most tutorials and made sure I had completed every respective tutorial for each module for each week. Engineering is a lot of work. You have to memorise a lot of derivations and develop problem solving skills well beyond what you've done in your A-Levels. It will devour your life, but I found that engineering requires the time commitment and the ability to discipline yourself to do a lot of work per week. You have to account for the difficulty by really putting the work in.
From what I've done so far, I didn't need to do any extra reading, the lectures were enough. I know this is not the case for design project though (2nd semester, year 3). Not sure if you do a design project as part of an electronics engineering degree.
I hope what I've said is applicable to your course.
(edited 5 years ago)
My advice would be to focus on getting a 2.1, and anything above that is just icing on the cake.
A 2.1 with extracurricular experience, internships (and a good research record if you want to go into academia) will go much further than a 1st. Focus on getting those things after you know what you need to do to get to a safe 2.1, then once you can do those things, look into how to get a 1st.
That said, it's also a lot easier to get a 1st at some unis than others, e.g. some unis will have 50% of MEng students graduating with a 1st, others will try to limit it to 30% or below.
I'd also disagree with afghanambition, it's much easier to get a 1st in Engineering than in Humanities. For engineering there are specific right answers, whereas for Humanities this isn't the case. As a result, humanities results tend to be clustered much more towards a 2.1, it's not uncommon to see courses with 70%+ getting 2.1s in arts and humanities. This makes it a lot easier to get high marks in engineering.
A 2.1 with extracurricular experience, internships (and a good research record if you want to go into academia) will go much further than a 1st. Focus on getting those things after you know what you need to do to get to a safe 2.1, then once you can do those things, look into how to get a 1st.
That said, it's also a lot easier to get a 1st at some unis than others, e.g. some unis will have 50% of MEng students graduating with a 1st, others will try to limit it to 30% or below.
I'd also disagree with afghanambition, it's much easier to get a 1st in Engineering than in Humanities. For engineering there are specific right answers, whereas for Humanities this isn't the case. As a result, humanities results tend to be clustered much more towards a 2.1, it's not uncommon to see courses with 70%+ getting 2.1s in arts and humanities. This makes it a lot easier to get high marks in engineering.
(edited 5 years ago)
Original post by Helloworld_95
My advice would be to focus on getting a 2.1, and anything above that is just icing on the cake.
A 2.1 with extracurricular experience, internships (and a good research record if you want to go into academia) will go much further than a 1st. Focus on getting those things after you know what you need to do to get to a safe 2.1, then once you can do those things, look into how to get a 1st.
That said, it's also a lot easier to get a 1st at some unis than others, e.g. some unis will have 50% of MEng students graduating with a 1st, others will try to limit it to 30% or below.
I'd also disagree with afghanambition, it's much easier to get a 1st in Engineering than in Humanities. For engineering there are specific right answers, whereas for Humanities this isn't the case. As a result, humanities results tend to be clustered much more towards a 2.1, it's not uncommon to see courses with 70%+ getting 2.1s in arts and humanities. This makes it a lot easier to get high marks in engineering.
A 2.1 with extracurricular experience, internships (and a good research record if you want to go into academia) will go much further than a 1st. Focus on getting those things after you know what you need to do to get to a safe 2.1, then once you can do those things, look into how to get a 1st.
That said, it's also a lot easier to get a 1st at some unis than others, e.g. some unis will have 50% of MEng students graduating with a 1st, others will try to limit it to 30% or below.
I'd also disagree with afghanambition, it's much easier to get a 1st in Engineering than in Humanities. For engineering there are specific right answers, whereas for Humanities this isn't the case. As a result, humanities results tend to be clustered much more towards a 2.1, it's not uncommon to see courses with 70%+ getting 2.1s in arts and humanities. This makes it a lot easier to get high marks in engineering.
You make a fair point about the humanities. I've edited my post accordingly.
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