Aeronautical and Aerospace Engineering is one of the most challenging and demanding of engineering disciplines. It is the study of the mathematics, physics, computer science, materials science and design philosophy that goes into the analysis, design, manufacture and operation of aircraft and aerospace vehicles.

It's a great challenge and you need good technical skills as well as the ability to work in a team if you are going to be successful. The courses have been designed to give you experiences that will allow you to go and do this in an industrial setting.

Graduates from this programme can apply their skills in a number of areas including: research, airline management and operations, satellite operations and aerospace design, and manufacturing in general, civil and military environments. The global aerospace industry drives many future developments in science and technology.

Career opportunities

Graduates from this programme will be able to apply their skills in a number of areas including: research, airline management and operations, satellite operations and aerospace design, and manufacturing in general, civil and military environments. You will also gain a wide range of transferable skills such as project management, team working and data handling that means you will be well placed to pursue successful careers in, for example, consultancy, Information technology and accountancy.

Automotive Engineering is concerned with the lifecycle support (including design, manufacture, performance and durability testing) of vehicles; from road and off-road vehicles to race cars, vans and trucks. A key target for Automotive Engineers in the new millennium is to design sustainable vehicles that meet ever-increasing safety and performance standards in a cost-effective manner. In order to do this, engineers need to be able to embrace a wide range of both fundamental and more specialist engineering skills, as well as being aware of the commercial implications that impinge on the design and production processes.

It's a great challenge and you need good technical skills as well as the ability to work in a team if you are going to be successful. The courses have been designed to give you experiences that will allow you to apply this in an industrial setting. Many graduate students end up working in the automobile industry. Some students take different career paths as they gain other skills such as team working and problem solving.

Career Options

Automotive Engineering graduates are highly sought after by industry. You will also gain a wide range of transferable skills such as project management, team working and data handling that means you will be well placed to pursue successful careers in, for example, consultancy, Information technology and accountancy.

From Imperial College London:

The Department of Bioengineering's main aims are to apply fundamental methods developed by physical scientists and engineers to further the understanding of biology, physiology and medicine and to develop devices and methods for improving diagnosis and therapy.

Biomedical engineering is a rapidly changing, interdisciplinary field that applies engineering principles and technology to medical and biological problems. The undergraduate curriculum provides integrated training in science, engineering, and mathematics as preparation for a variety of careers in a broad range of areas of engineering, science, health care, and business. The course focuses on providing students with the skills necessary to solve problems that impact on a wide range of economic, environmental, ethical, legal, and social issues.

The course begins by offering a broad foundation in physics, engineering, mathematics, and medical science and progresses to more advanced engineering studies that combine the quantitative aspects of engineering analysis and design with a broad range of biomedical problems.

Careers

Graduates of this course will be well equipped for employment in the growing industrial sector devoted to health care, which includes pharmaceuticals, medical devices, artificial organs, prosthetics and sensory aids, diagnostics, medical instrumentation, and medical imaging. Employment will also be available in hospitals and clinics, research institutes and in government or other public organisations concerned with regulation of medical materials and equipment.

Because of the breadth and the multidisciplinary nature of the course, graduates will be welcomed in many commercial areas where analytical and problem solving skills may be useful for a wide range of applications.

Chemical Engineers work to design and operate processes which convert raw materials into the products in use everyday, from the water we drink to the fuels we use to power transportation and heat our homes, through to products we user to enhance our well-being and health such as foods, medicines and bathroom and beauty products. Chemical Engineering is a challenging and responsible profession. For example, have you ever thought how Chemical Engineers ensure that medicines are correctly dosed to ensure that every pill sold contains exactly the right amount of active ingredient? Chemical Engineers have an important and vital role in protecting people and the environment by developing safe, green, efficient and economic processes.

To fulfil these roles, Chemical Engineers need to understand how processes work from the scale of the process to the scale of the molecule. Chemical Engineers are experts in mixing, chemical reactions and changes of physical state and size. Chemical Engineers make use of sophisticated experiments and computer modelling techniques to help them solve problems. Chemical Engineers often work as part of a team with engineers and scientists from other disciplines and hence need good communication, teamworking and managerial skills.

Industry is currently experiencing a shortage of Chemical Engineers and job prospects and starting salaries are therefore excellent. Graduates find career opportunities in plant operations, design, research, consultancy and management as well as in government and commercial services.

The development of any progressive society is dependent in part upon the skill and dedication of its civil engineers. They are concerned with the planning, design, construction and maintenance of highways, airports, docks and harbours, coastal defences, irrigation systems, essential municipal services (such as water supply, drainage and sewage disposal) and structural work including buildings, bridges, dams, reservoirs and power stations. A civil engineering career offers many different challenges and opportunities in all parts of the world.

The Civil Engineering degree programmes aim to equip you with the basic principles of Civil Engineering theory and practice and an understanding of their application in design and construction. All of the programmes offered concentrate on the basic principles of civil engineering theory and practice and their application in design and construction.

From the University of Manchester:

BEng Civil Engineering provides a basic preparation for professional careers in the Built Environment sector (including design, construction, local authority and specialist work) as well as other areas such as project management and finance. We aim to instil not just knowledge of engineering science, but also a base of practical skills, an understanding of design, comprehension of the commercial world and competence in transferable skills (problem solving, team working, creativity, communications and IT). The degree also provides an excellent route for individuals wishing to proceed to postgraduate education as quickly as possible.

The first year provides a foundation in civil engineering science. You will take basic course units in the major civil engineering disciplines of structures, hydraulics, design, geotechnics (ground engineering), materials, management and surveying. Your proficiency in mathematics will be enhanced and your skills in computing, communications and IT developed. In addition, you will be able to choose optional subjects such as conceptual structural design, environmental engineering, architecture and form, and even a foreign language.

The second year continues the civil engineering course units mentioned above. In addition, further units such as highways and water engineering will introduce you to the application of the science in the real world of civil engineering.

The third year extends your knowledge of the key disciplines of structural, hydraulic and geotechnical engineering, as well as improving your understanding of design and construction management. In addition, you will undertake a personal research project and study options from the application of civil engineering, such as water engineering, environmental assessment, infrastructure, transportation and earthquake engineering.

The following course outline is offered at the University of Manchester:

BEng (Hons) Computing and Communications Systems Engineering is a three year programme.

Computers generate, process and store information and so it is natural that they will also need to exchange and share information. In fact it is now difficult to envisage any computer system operating without access to external information sources via a data network. It is for this reason that Computer Engineering and Communication Engineering form complimentary specialisms in a degree programme.

The Internet is perhaps the most familiar communication network, it comprises many types of network including: radio, satellite, cable, infrared, optical-fibre and microwave. This programme offers you the opportunity to study all of these network types and understand how network protocols enable them all to work together to transport information across the office or around the world. Mobile computing, satellite communications, Java programming of internet applications and smart card security are just a few examples of the specialist areas in which graduates from this programme could contribute expertise.

The first year of BEng (Hons) Computing and Communications Systems Engineering develops a theoretical and practical understanding of the topics common to all branches of the subject. These include: analogue circuit design, digital circuit design, electronic materials and devices, computer engineering, Java programming, engineering mathematics and communication systems.

Practical application and project work are strong themes in all our programmes. In the first year you will be given a microcontroller development system and a kit of parts to construct a versatile input/output interface. The microcontroller project integrates two important aspects of modern electronics, namely, computer engineering and software engineering.

The common first year structure allows you to make the final decision on your area of specialism at the end of the first year when you will have studied a broad range of subjects. This is also a time at which you will have gained a wider appreciation of the careers that an Electrical and Electronic Engineering degree can offer.

The second year builds on the first year to provide a broad base of knowledge whilst introducing the topics that lead to the specialisations of each programme. The topics covered on this programme are communication principles; digital systems design; electronic circuit design; microcomputer engineering; control systems; signals and systems; software engineering; generation and transport of electrical energy; transmission lines and electromagnetic waves; engineering mathematics and microelectronic components.

The theme of practical application and project work continues with the Embedded Systems Project. This is a team project in which you will work in a small group to solve a realistic engineering design problem using the microcontroller development system built in the first year. The design problem will be tailored to your particular degree programme and will introduce the teamwork skills that are essential for the modern engineering graduate.

By the third year, the degree programmes are quite distinct and you will be studying towards your chosen area of specialism. Compulsory modules are technology transfer and enterprise; Digital Communications; Digital Signal Processing; Systems Engineering; Mobile Radio and Wireless Communications. Additionally, options are available in: Codes, Sequences and Cryptography; Computer Networks and Distributed Computing; Concurrent Systems and their Implementation; Design and Implementation of VLSI Systems; RF and Microwave Circuit Design. The third year also contains an individual project which consolidates your knowledge, skills and understanding.

Research and Development, Design, Systems Analysis, Installation and Commissioning, Process Engineering, Control and Maintenance, Manufacturing, Quality Assurance and Testing, Information Technology, Programming, Consultancy, Management and Software Engineering are some examples of career opportunities open to graduates.

From Nottingham University:

This degree is designed for students wishing to specialise in electrical subjects covering power generation and distribution, electrical machines, power electronics, real-time control, power quality, electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) and industrial drive processes. The School's activities in these areas are internationally known and have attracted considerable industrial collaboration. Many in the industry regard the School as perhaps the leading UK centre for an education in electrical engineering.

In the first two years you will gain an understanding of the principles and practices on which electrical and electronic engineering is founded. In the final years you will choose modules according to your interests and specialisation. Course structures have been designed to help you make your module selections in a co-ordinated manner. All third and fourth year modules aim at an in-depth conceptual understanding of the subject whilst covering both established and new applications in your chosen field. Should you decide to continue with the MEng, in your third year you will participate in a group project, which examines the socio-economic and technical aspects of a major industrial endeavour. In your fourth year modules take the material to a more advanced level; these modules consist of project work and also cover latest research topics and the concepts required to understand them.

Your career options

Electrical and Electronic Engineering as your degree is like a passport to amazing things, particularly if it's stamped at the University of Nottingham! As an engineer your employment prospects are excellent.

Well over 90% of our graduates find career employment within three months of graduating, because the engineering industries rate our students so highly. The School has always maintained strong links with industry. We have links with over 30 top companies; some support student projects and laboratories, others sponsor students and many of them come to the School to recruit graduates or provide students with year-out opportunities in industry.

In terms of the professions you can join, electrical and electronic engineers have wider horizons than most:

- 58% go into engineering
- 13% into management and commerce
- 13% into software and IT
- 11% into further education
- 5% into other areas

Travel-wise you can get started globetrotting during your degree! Once you've graduated, having a world-respected degree from the University of Nottingham opens doors all around the globe.

Engineering is about solving problems: about designing processes and making products to improve the quality of human life. From reservoirs to robots, aircraft to artificial hips, microchips to mobile phones – engineers design and manufacture a huge variety of objects that can make a real difference to both individuals and to societies.

The aim of our course is to provide you with all the analytical, design and computing skills that underpin modern engineering practice, while encouraging the creativity and problem-solving skills that are so important to a good engineer.

When you graduate, we believe you will be equipped to be flexible across the range of engineering disciplines, will have learnt the skills necessary for effective team leadership, and be able to apply new technologies in novel situations. In other words, you will have the skills you will need to master technical and managerial demands throughout your professional career. The Cambridge course is unique. Studying engineering at Cambridge keeps your options open.

The advantages of our course:

• The distinctions between mathematicians, physicists, computer scientists and engineers are eroding year by year. Our four-year course is designed to produce graduates who are not limited by the boundaries between the traditional engineering disciplines.
• Part I provides you with a broad and robust education in the fundamentals of engineering. This enables you to make a genuinely informed choice about the area in which you will specialise in your third and fourth years, fully aware of your strengths and interests. We find that many of our students change direction as a result. Part II provides in-depth training in your chosen professional area, whether it be Civil, Structural, Mechanical, Aerospace, Biomedical, Electrical, Electronic, Information or Manufacturing Engineering.
• Even if you already know in which branch of engineering you want to specialise, you will benefit from the way our course is structured. The broad foundation provided by Part I makes you uniquely well suited to working in and leading multidisciplinary teams.
• However, it is not a ‘general’ course – all our students specialise – and our graduates emerge fully qualified in their chosen area with as much knowledge as those from other less flexible courses. Our Tripos is accredited by all the major institutions including the Institutions of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE), Electrical Engineers (IEE), Civil Engineers (ICE), and Structural Engineers (IStructE), the Institute of Measurement and Control and the Royal Aeronautical Society. An appropriate combination of Part II modules is required in each case.
• You can add breadth to your specialisation by choosing additional topics, including foreign languages and management.
• As well as the extensive range of compulsory projects, there are opportunities to acquire other practical skills, ranging from the ‘Engine Strip and Rebuild’ sessions to building robots to compete in TV shows.
• The modular nature of the third and fourth years provides the flexibility needed to teach this constantly evolving subject and to incorporate the latest developments. Engineering Applications Lectures, often given by invited speakers, also keep you in touch with the latest industrial and research aspects of engineering.
• About a fifth of our incoming students have obtained industrial or government sponsorship and many more secure sponsorship during the course.
• In contrast with most other engineering courses, the Cambridge timetable rarely involves lectures or coursework in the afternoons or on Saturdays, leaving you free to organise your own private study (and play!) schedules.

Foreign languages

A distinguishing feature of our Engineering Department is the Language Programme for Engineers: we offer specialised courses in French, German, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese. This initiative aims to provide our graduates with the necessary language skills and cultural awareness to excel in the worldwide marketplace.

The Department and its resources

The Department of Engineering, which has approximately 1,200 undergraduates and 350 graduate students, forms about 10 per cent of the University. Our students come from all over the country, as well as from Europe and further afield, and from every type of background. They participate in the running of the Department through membership of the Faculty Board (which is concerned with policy) and through the Staff–Student Joint Committee.

In the last teaching assessment, the Department scored 23 out of a maximum of 24 points, with an exceptionally high proportion of observed teaching sessions awarded the top rating. We are a leading international centre for research and consistently gain the highest possible ranking (5*) in the assessment of research achievements in British universities. We have developed strong links with industry and this is indicated by the fact that more than a third of our 300 large research projects are funded by industrial companies.

Facilities within the Department are excellent: there is a large Design and Project Office equipped with more than 80 powerful workstations; the library has some 30,000 books and about 350 current journals are taken; and extensive mechanical and electrical workshops are available for teaching, undergraduate projects, research and recreational engineering.

Changing courses

Students may transfer to the Chemical Engineering Tripos at the end of their first year, or to the Management Studies Tripos or the Manufacturing Engineering Tripos after completing Part I of the Engineering Tripos.

Industrial experience and sponsorship

For Part IB of the Engineering Tripos you are required to complete four weeks of industrial experience, and for Part IIA you must complete a further four weeks of relevant experience. Industrial experience may be obtained during a pre-university period by deferring entry – which many Colleges encourage – or during vacations. Most students arrange industrial experience in the long vacations even after they have fulfilled the minimum requirements.

Our full-time Industrial Placement Co-ordinator helps deferred entrants and undergraduates to find suitable industrial experience placements (in the UK and abroad) and sponsorship.

Excellent career prospects

At the end of four years you will graduate with the BA and MEng degrees. (A few students leave the course after three years, either from choice or for academic reasons, and graduate with the BA Hons degree.)

The style and structure of our course give you a unique head start over other graduates. Employment prospects are excellent, with 99 per cent of our students finding a job within six months of graduating.

The Department of Engineering Science at Oxford is a unified department, covering all the important engineering disciplines. It has a top-level rating for teaching and an international reputation for research, consistently given the highest possible (5*A) rating. It admits about 170 undergraduates per year onto four-year MEng courses. Slightly more than half of the undergraduates read Engineering Science; the others take one of two joint courses, in each of which about one third of the material is not Engineering Science.

All undergraduates are members of an Oxford college, as are the academic staff of the Department. Each college is an active institution composed of small numbers of members from almost all the University's subjects. Thus all engineers, like everyone else at Oxford, have good contact with people in other disciplines.

The learning process

At school you are taught, but at University it is up to you to learn. Information is made available to you by several modes.

University lectures introduce the material to be studied. In presenting topics that make up the syllabus, lecturers aim to explain what has to be thought about, why it is of interest, and how it is to be thought about.

Oxford's terms are short, and the number of lectures for each topic is smaller than elsewhere. It remains for undergraduates themselves to do the thinking and learning, guided by exercises that provide the basis for their tutorial work.

College Tutorials are Oxford's mechanism for helping undergraduates to learn.

Tutorials in Engineering are organised to complement the University lectures. For the common core of the course undergraduates, in pairs, normally have two one-hour sessions with a college tutor each week. Theses tutorials provide a personal focus for each undergraduate's work and an opportunity to discuss any aspect of the course.

For specialist topics, later on, tutorials are replaced by classes.

Practicals are an essential part of the training of an engineer. Practical work is compulsory and supplements lectures. Practicals can range from computer programming to testing reinforced concrete columns, or exercises in multivariable control.

Coursework Modules

During the summer term of the second year, students take a number of one-week intensive courses. These modules integrate predominantly practical work with relevant theory, and may include site visits.

Industrial Experience

Sponsored students usually spend some time with their sponsoring company during vacations.

Projects provide an opportunity to gain experience of the process of design; from drawing up a specification through to analysis, assembly and evaluation. Third-year design projects are carried out by undergraduates working in groups. Fourth-year projects are normally for individuals.

Careers

Oxford engineering graduates are in high demand from the spectrum of engineering industries, from the established giants to the lean start-ups. Our graduates find positions too in engineering consultancy, in the financial sector, and indeed anywhere where the ability to model and design systems is valued. A sizeable number continue to complete doctorates by research in Oxford and elsewhere.

From the University of Leeds:

Mechanical Engineers are trained to produce practical designs for a wide range of practical applications - from engines to complete Formula 1 racing cars, from artificial heart valves to state-of-the art wheelchairs. You could find yourself working on various projects from very small micro-robots to space stations.

It is a great challenge and you need good technical skills as well as the ability to work in a team if you are going to be successful. The course at Leeds has been designed to give you experiences that will allow you to apply what you learn in an industrial setting. Many of our students go straight into industry and they are sought after for many different career paths. They gain a wide range of key skills such as team working and problem solving.

Career opportunities

Our graduates are highly sought after by industry. You will also gain a wide range of transferable skills such as project management, team working and data handling. This means you will be well placed to pursue successful careers in, for example, Consultancy, Information technology and Accountancy.

How will I be taught?

You will be taught through a complementary mix of lectures, practical classes, tutorials, case studies and individual and team-based projects. Some of the teaching will be to large groups whilst some will be team based or in small tutorial groups of 5 or 6.

All the degree schemes offered by the School are modular. During the first two years you will follow a syllabus of core mechanical engineering modules and in the final years you will study a number of compulsory modules plus options from a wide range of specialist modules. In addition, each student carries out a professional project. Past projects have been wide ranging and varied and include sports engineering, design of an inclusive can opener, chassis and suspension design, rapid manufacture through laser sintering or mobile robotic machines.