The Student Room Group

engineering

Poll

engineering

im thinking of applying for engineering in January, but ive seen a lot of posts on TSR saying that if they were me they'd go for medicine because the job prospects for engineering are terrible. ive also seen several stories of people who studied it saying not to because you won't get a job. my question is, why would a person who wants to study engineering ever consider medicine, and also engineering can't be that bad when it comes to job prospects. is it that bad in the UK and should I just not do it. id never do medicine, so now im confused on what to do at uni
You already said you don't want to do medicine (in fact you said you'd never do medicine) so why on earth would you consider it at all?
Original post by artful_lounger
You already said you don't want to do medicine (in fact you said you'd never do medicine) so why on earth would you consider it at all?

yeah, id never, but I don't get why people discourage aspiring engineers and say ''id do medicine if I were you'', as if engineers don't have jobs :frown:
Reply 3
Original post by nutellamilkcake
yeah, id never, but I don't get why people discourage aspiring engineers and say ''id do medicine if I were you'', as if engineers don't have jobs :frown:

I'm applying to study engineering too, and I've been told engineering employability is v good?
Original post by user342
I'm applying to study engineering too, and I've been told engineering employability is v good?

really? because ive seen some sources say that, but some saying the exact opposite, but I guess we should just go for it. what type of engineering are you looking to apply for?
Original post by nutellamilkcake
yeah, id never, but I don't get why people discourage aspiring engineers and say ''id do medicine if I were you'', as if engineers don't have jobs :frown:


There are definitely engineering jobs out there. However, you can't expect to just get the degree, attending lectures and taking exams for 3-4 years and doing njothing else, and expect to get a job at the end. You need to be actively making yourself employable by seeking out work experience, internship and placement opportunities and undertaking them, and also where possible exploring extracurricular activities that allow you to develop relevant transferable skills (this can range from managing finances and doing invoicing as a treasurer of a society to just learning to take minutes as a member of a society).
Original post by artful_lounger
There are definitely engineering jobs out there. However, you can't expect to just get the degree, attending lectures and taking exams for 3-4 years and doing njothing else, and expect to get a job at the end. You need to be actively making yourself employable by seeking out work experience, internship and placement opportunities and undertaking them, and also where possible exploring extracurricular activities that allow you to develop relevant transferable skills (this can range from managing finances and doing invoicing as a treasurer of a society to just learning to take minutes as a member of a society).

thank you, you're 100% right
Original post by nutellamilkcake
thank you, you're 100% right

Hi there,
I had seen this thread and thought I'd offer some advice, based on my academic track as an Engineering/Natural Sciences graduate, along with my professional experiences of working in the UK. Please do bear in mind that these are based on my own subjective experiences, so it's up to you to make your own life choices.

I studied Aerospace Engineering MEng at Southampton University followed by an MSc in Applied Physics and Engineering at Warwick followed by a PhD in Condensed Matter Physics at Warwick (summer schooling in data science and machine learning at the LSE). I currently work as a data scientist/machine learning engineer. In summary, Engineering subjects (whether mechanical, electrical, electronic, civil, maritime or any of the others) are brilliant, challenging and highly interesting to study; however the UK is not a manufacturing based economy. It is 75% services based. Several key, classical, "heavy" engineering industries in the UK, such as: steel, semiconductor, automotive, power & energy and petrochemicals, have been in trouble for the last 20 years and you will be competing with a multitude of other graduates for what are, limited places. The most apt analogy that I can think of is of hungry dogs fighting over scraps of meat. So if you plan to study engineering in the UK, then plan to leave the UK afterwards because the UK economy doesn't support much heavy industries. So most of my colleagues who I studied engineering with, and worked with, have moved to data science/data analyst positions; which are interesting roles but you won't be making anything tangible that you can hold in your hands.

I have personally worked in the steel industry many years ago, as part of my MSc degree, and I can honestly say that it is a dead end industry in the UK. If you don't believe me, then just follow the news and see how many times steel plants have been shut and how many times the UK government has scrambled to find buyers to keep these industries going and provide jobs. If you choose to study materials science/engineering as a degree then I implore you not to work with an organisation called the Materials Processing Institute. If you want further information then please do reply to this post and I'd be happy to elaborate further on my experiences.

Thanks
Original post by Engineer_grad
Hi there,
I had seen this thread and thought I'd offer some advice, based on my academic track as an Engineering/Natural Sciences graduate, along with my professional experiences of working in the UK. Please do bear in mind that these are based on my own subjective experiences, so it's up to you to make your own life choices.

I studied Aerospace Engineering MEng at Southampton University followed by an MSc in Applied Physics and Engineering at Warwick followed by a PhD in Condensed Matter Physics at Warwick (summer schooling in data science and machine learning at the LSE). I currently work as a data scientist/machine learning engineer. In summary, Engineering subjects (whether mechanical, electrical, electronic, civil, maritime or any of the others) are brilliant, challenging and highly interesting to study; however the UK is not a manufacturing based economy. It is 75% services based. Several key, classical, "heavy" engineering industries in the UK, such as: steel, semiconductor, automotive, power & energy and petrochemicals, have been in trouble for the last 20 years and you will be competing with a multitude of other graduates for what are, limited places. The most apt analogy that I can think of is of hungry dogs fighting over scraps of meat. So if you plan to study engineering in the UK, then plan to leave the UK afterwards because the UK economy doesn't support much heavy industries. So most of my colleagues who I studied engineering with, and worked with, have moved to data science/data analyst positions; which are interesting roles but you won't be making anything tangible that you can hold in your hands.

I have personally worked in the steel industry many years ago, as part of my MSc degree, and I can honestly say that it is a dead end industry in the UK. If you don't believe me, then just follow the news and see how many times steel plants have been shut and how many times the UK government has scrambled to find buyers to keep these industries going and provide jobs. If you choose to study materials science/engineering as a degree then I implore you not to work with an organisation called the Materials Processing Institute. If you want further information then please do reply to this post and I'd be happy to elaborate further on my experiences.

Thanks

thank you for your detailed reply, im thinking of electrical engineering, but do you think I should change my career choice
Reply 9
Original post by nutellamilkcake
really? because ive seen some sources say that, but some saying the exact opposite, but I guess we should just go for it. what type of engineering are you looking to apply for?

I'm thinking electronic and electrical atm, although mechanical looks v cool.
Original post by nutellamilkcake
thank you for your detailed reply, im thinking of electrical engineering, but do you think I should change my career choice

Hello again,
Electrical engineering is a superb subject as is electronic engineering. Even though my stream is aerospace engineering, between my MEng and MSc degrees, I myself studied several electrical engineering modules. To me personally, Power Electronics was hands down one of the most fascinating subjects that I studied as an MSc student at Warwick. But.......

You have to think about employment opportunities after your degree. As I said in my last message, the UK simply is not an industrial economy. If you seriously want to be an engineer, and electrical engineering is your passion, then be prepared to leave the UK after the completion of your degree. You'll need to have an MEng degree, 2:1 bare minimum and depending on what field you want to work in as an electrical engineer, you'll need do a placement as part of your degree to convince industrial managers that you have professional experience of working as an engineer. But even then you'll be competing with other top graduates for such highly sought after positions. The alternative would be to stay at university in the UK as an academic. Despite what many say, there is nothing wrong with wanting to forge a carrier in academia, but there again you'll be fighting for grant proposals to fund your research and pay your wage. I myself am looking to go back to academia in the not too distant future, but no way am I going into UK academia.

The UK used to be an engineering nation 70 years ago. In the past, the UK had a strong tradition of engineering, with engineers such as: Michael Faraday, Oliver Heaviside and Frank Whittle. But political decisions brought on by a series of UK governments has relegated engineering to second class status in the UK. The title 'Engineer' is not even sacrosanct anymore in the UK. It certainly used to be. Now even the plumber or the person that installs a hot water boiler or the person that cleans the drains are calling themselves 'Engineers'. Careful, if you tell people you're studying electrical engineering, they might confuse you for the person that changes the fuse in a plug for a living :smile:.

The honest truth is that engineering has shrunk in the UK, so much so that those who are already in such industries will fight tooth and nail to hold onto their positions. They'll even use naïve undergraduates for their brain to work on projects to try and generate new leads for them to secure their own positions and then discard the undergraduates. I personally have experienced this.

If you're planning to stay in the UK, then from my experience select maths and computer science degree subjects or as many of these modules as possible. Useful programming languages are Python and R. There is a demand in the UK for good computational mathematicians in the data industry. Data science roles needs minimal investment unlike heavy industries and this is personally a very attractive proposition for the average UK politician: less investment the better.

Please feel free to ask me any questions that you may have.

Cheers.

Quick Reply

Latest