soon to be a DR of engineering

[zardoz]

Good for you mate. This country is crying out for engineers. The only thing that is certain when you qualify is where to work would be best for you, as I'm sure you will have your pick. I have tried to cajole my nephew into engineering, but the chance of that is nil. I cerainly wish I had carried on with it after I finished my general engineering course at college after i left school.

Maybe next time around.

 

[Burdekin]

yes i will be working alongside the course in order to fund myself. i am in the lucky position where my missus is a nurse, so she earns fairly good money, and i am working both as a machinist earning around 1600 a month, and doing work for myself earning whatever comes my way. i also have the support of my father who only wants me to succeed and is willing to help in any way he can.

Good luck with the course and good on you. I did 60hrs per week at uni, 30hrs contact at uni and 30hrs at home studying. I topped my year and if you want to do a masters and phd you will need to put in those kind of hours to get the grades. Mech eng is a tough course, was where I went anyhow and 1 extra year doing maths would get you a maths degree, so heaps of maths. I worked in the coal mines (in oz) in my vacations but I also worked and saved for 6yrs to fund my uni. I would have struggled to also have worked while studying and wouldn't have got the grades which get you into post grad courses and the best jobs.

 

[julianthegypsy]

Good luck with the course and good on you. I did 60hrs per week at uni, 30hrs contact at uni and 30hrs at home studying. I topped my year and if you want to do a masters and phd you will need to put in those kind of hours to get the grades. Mech eng is a tough course, was where I went anyhow and 1 extra year doing maths would get you a maths degree, so heaps of maths. I worked in the coal mines (in oz) in my vacations but I also worked and saved for 6yrs to fund my uni. I would have struggled to also have worked while studying and wouldn't have got the grades which get you into post grad courses and the best jobs.

Yep, those are the kind of hours my son puts in, so working part time is out of the question. That's on an Meng course at Surrey. Like you were, he's determined to get a first and will really deserve it.

 

[Wendelspanswick]

Don't underestimate the amount of study hours you need to put in each week, I would have struggled to fit in a part time job with a full time M eng. course so I did an Open University degree and carried on with my full time self employment. The OU course was a shock to the system and put paid to all my hobbies and socialising. In the end I went part time in my well paid self employment to complete my degree.
The math learning curve was huge and a real struggle to get to grips with.

 

[marlinspike]

Good luck with this. Any degree is hard work, but worth it in the end. I feel sorry for degree students though - £9k a year charge and they get half the tuition they used to get. There's a lot of hidden expenses in studying, like books and such, so it's good that you will be able to work a bit through the course.

 

[rtcosic]

The very best of luck and my best of best wishes for your chosen route. You have chosen a hard row to hoe!

When I went up I was confident of my mathematical capabilities until:

Fourier Transforms

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/FourierTransform.html

- I could cope, but only as a 'tool' without truly understanding the beasts.

However when we got to Laplace transforms

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/LaplaceTransform.html

and Bessel functions

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/BesselFunction.html


I just 'died'. I rote learned enough practice exam answers to get through but in reality they were a 'black hole' to me.

As others have said I would challenge the PhD route. German engineering outfits may give it value, but in the English speaking world it's usually seen as only for academics and can make you less employable in industry.

Secondary school boards of governors like it though.

 

[Robotstar5]

Best of luck to you, my maths is terrible, even struggled with basic differentiation, I couldn't see why I needed to be able work out the area under a curve to become a sparky when I was at college

 

[Splatterer]

Go for it. And enjoy it at the time.
I kicked off at nightschool for a ONC whilst working full time and took it as far as a BA (hons) at nightschool just to see how far I could go.
BUT I was working about 60 hours a week during the final year and missed one exam. That miss was enough to knock me down to a 2.2 and out of the running for the jobs I wanted to go for.
You can only get a 'pass' in a re-sit.

So managing your grades is a fairly important part of the degree process.
That said, running your own business and having a chip on your shoulder should go a long way towards keeping the fire in your belly that you'll need.

And I recon you'll make it.

Plus a lot of 'hitting the brick wall learning' is actually not a brick wall, but a different approach can get a small point across that blows open the subject for you.

 

[tlovatt]

When I went up I was confident of my mathematical capabilities until:

Fourier Transforms

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/FourierTransform.html

- I could cope, but only as a 'tool' without truly understanding the beasts.

However when we got to Laplace transforms

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/LaplaceTransform.html

and Bessel functions

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/BesselFunction.html


I just 'died'. I rote learned enough practice exam answers to get through but in reality they were a 'black hole' to me.

You need to get a better tutor, Fourier, although it is made to look complex is quite simple, essentially you can make any repetative waveform by adding sine waves together (e.g. a square wave is 1/n x sin(n) for all off numbers). A Fourier transform is for irregular waveforms and so you break it down into discrete parts allowing sine waves to be added to make up each discrete part. Another way to think of it is that you can add or subtract circles to make any shape.

Laplace is just shifting from time to frequency domain - although it takes longer to get your head around it!

 

[pedrobedro]

 

[rtcosic]

Fourier, although it is made to look complex is quite simple, essentially you can make any repetative waveform by adding sine waves together (e.g. a square wave is 1/n x sin(n) for all off numbers). A Fourier transform is for irregular waveforms and so you break it down into discrete parts allowing sine waves to be added to make up each discrete part. Another way to think of it is that you can add or subtract circles to make any shape.

Laplace is just shifting from time to frequency domain - although it takes longer to get your head around it!

What he said!

See what I mean?

 

[penfold]

I just 'died'. I rote learned enough practice exam answers to get through but in reality they were a 'black hole' to me.

Snap; I celebrated my graduation(desmond) by promptly forgetting any of the ghastly maths I hadn't already shed from my mind. With hindsight some of it was lack of application on my part, but having read some books by Feynman and watched some Youtube lectures a lot of it was down to duff lecturers delivering duff lectures. Given what it costs to spend 4 years at uni now I wouldn't accept that kind of thing.

 

[Burdekin]

Most of my lecturers were great with an open door policy. We also had an excellent maths tutorial centre which was a god send which I lived at in the first year. Work hard and play hard and you'll have the time of your life and make life long friends while you're there too.

 

[BrokenBiker]

it is an open university route I am taking. course doesn't officially start till feburary, however I am paying it off monthly so by the start of the course I will have paid off quite a considerable amount which will allow me to lower the payments during the course.

as for Ph.d, I think you may be right. I had looked into chartership, but not in much detail, however I am now coming to realise that a Ph.d is pretty pointless unless I want to teach degree standard engineering to others.

any road I have plenty of time to consider those options, have to get through undergraduate and post graduate first lol.

I have been sent a few pdf files showing the various parts of the course for BEng and a lot of it I have covered already on a basic level, so it will be interesting to delve deeper into them, and hopefully I should be able to keep up for most of it.

even though it is open uni course, they have sent me a list of times and places where I can just 'drop in' to various uni's local to me as and when I need to so that should help a lot if I start to struggle.

I have also spent most of my rather quiet day looking through jobs that are taking on Beng and MEng graduates and there seem to be a lot around, where as not so many looking for Ph.d graduates. I think you are right when you say chartership is a better option.

but as I say plenty of time to get to that. firstly I must focus on BEng and get that under my belt. then...the world

 

[bs2236]

Good luck with the courses mate.
I have done both the BEng and the new MEng (MM03) with the OU in recent years. The best bits of advice I can give you are as follows:-

1 - pick courses in subjects that interest you, and ones that will have a natural progression through the qualification. The study is hard enough without struggling with something you don't enjoy or can relate to.
2 - start assignments (ECA,s and TMA,s) as soon as you can. Don't leave them to the last minute as the lecturers can grow tired of students asking for extensions.
3 - attend as many tutorials as you can. Studying in isolation is difficult as you have no one to bounce ideas off. Try to build up a group of other students that you converse with. The OU has some excellent online conferencing facilities for each course.
4 - use your tutor to bounce things off. Not all tutors are approachable and don't be afraid to go to the course chair or student support if you have issues.

It is a very rewarding and flexible way of studying, don't be tempted to go too fast and do a number of courses at once. I tried this doing two 30 point l3 courses and working 60 hours a week, it nearly killed me. Finally don't underestimate the time you need to put in, some of the 60 point courses seemed easier than the 30 pointers.

Try to think about your project early on, you will have two to do one for each course.

If you need any specific advice or details of the courses I took drop me a pm.

Cheers

BS

 

[tlovatt]

I am not sure what information there is to support or advise against chartered status. I passed my chartership interview at 25 so other than my first career change have always had the CEng status. I can say it is not actually a lot of work to get CEng or IEng status as it is experience that counts once you have the qualifications. I would avoid the mickey mouse institues though!. Joining either the IMechE or IET (depending upon your chosen subject) can be good as you get access to other resources and can often make helpful contacts through the local meetings (and attend some interesting talks).

I would also add another voice to the start off working hard philosophy, at university too many decided to have an easy first year and 'make it up in years 2 and 3' - they never managed it!

 

[bs2236]

I agree with the comments above ref chartership. You will have to do two courses as part of your BEng that helps you put the things in place to start your route towards chartership.

I am a member of the IMarEST but attend IMechE meetings and technical briefings as often as I can. They are a great source of information and can be a good social occasion.

I have gone through the Incorporated Engineer route but had to do the MEng for Chartered status as the BEng does not satisfy the educational status for CEng.

if professional recognition is important to you start to gather evidence now for your portfolio. This is not just a list of courses that you have done or qualifications but must contain evidence to back up your claims such as communication skills etc. can be a bit confusing at the start but your chosen institution will help you out with the paperwork and interview side. If you join your chosen institute as soon as you have enrolled with the ou then you can join as a student. Keep your institute up to speed with your chosen profile of courses as they need to ensure it meets the standards required by the engineering council.