Best UK places to study engineering

[epenguin]

What would your answer if you had to point someone?
A friend in Italy phoned me to ask for another friend who will be phoning me later. Apparently his daughter, studying engineering at an Italian University is quite bright but feeling held back, and maybe not getting on well with Profs. though doing well in exams. She is thinking of finishing her studies in the UK. I am asked if I could suggest/recommend anywhere.

OK I know an answer depends on many things, but just to start pointing in a good direction. Remember for an international thing reputation counts a lot, being just the one thing that employers can recognise more easily than other more imponderable things.

It is really not at all my field, but off the top of my head I thought to answer for a start you cannot go wrong with: Bath, Herriot-Watt, Imperial and a couple of places in Manchester (the old UMIST?) and maybe Cambridge. I have a vague idea of the first two as top for connection to industry and industrial work experience. I don't know whether by next year the Scottish one will still cost a lot less cost than the English ones. Think of Imperial as excellent of course, but in London and so expensive and you will somehow always go to London later and not the greatest student or cultural experience. Warwick was supposed to be industry-oriented but have mostly heard of it for other things like maths. Loughborough used to hear of but not of recently, is that in top class?

Any reactions of interest. Also how to better inform. As well as the Uni sites and prospectuses, the NUS has a rundown on student experience and views and the Times a Good University Guide?

I will probably be able to firm what she is looking for later and come back, but almost any half-informed comment here could be useful.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Here is a list I found.
http://studyuk.learnhub.com/lesson/19742-top-15-engineering-colleges-in-uk

 

[epenguin]

Thank you for that. I can now be more specific. For those who were aware of the old Italian University system where studies could drag on for a long time, that has now been reformed and students do a 3-year course and get a degree. They can leave with that but if they want to do serious professional engineering they have to do a further 2 years I think it is, called 'Specialisation'. It is encouraged to do this abroad.

The student in question is in electrical/electronic engineering and apparently is most attracted by telecommunications. She feels her degree has been heavily theoretical and she is wanting in idea of how to do anything in practice.

So we have a bit more criterion than in my first post. She will have to do her research and I shall try to help, but with all the (British) engineers here I thought we might get some useful extra observations and or opinions.

 

[epenguin]

http://www.ka-bloom.org/forum/style_emoticons/default/bump.gif No thoughts, relevant experience or comments?

 

[AlephZero]

If she has a BS degree from the Italian university, in the UK system I suppose she is looking for a 2-year MSc or something similar?

I don't know about EE but a reasonable list of "big names" to pick from is the UK Russell Group. http://www.russellgroup.ac.uk/our-universities/

FWIW the engineering company I work for has "long term" links (funding research projects, etc) with Cambridge, Imperial College, Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham, Oxford, Sheffield, Southampton, Warwick, and York. We are more interested in ME than EE but they all have good engineering departments with strong links to industry, so I guess that's a reasonable starting point.

You mentioned Loughborough. These days it seems to be specializing in science related to sport (at the professional level, not just student athletics), which presumably is irrelevant unless she wants to work on EE aspects of measurement systems or something similar.

Re "top connections for industry", Cambridge is now surrounded by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Fen, with lots of start-up companies, plus big names like Microsoft and ARM. but of course the competition for university places is rather high!

 

[Shaun_W]

If she completes her bachelors degree in Italy, she'll be applying for an MSc degree, which is a year long, rather than a full undergrad degree.

Lots of universities likely offer MSc degrees in telecommunications; the best thing to do would be to do a search for them all and see which course appeals the most, as well as which location is the most desirable and which university is most affordable.