Do UK University Rankings Matter for Engineering Education?

[mynick]

Recently, i had conversation with a professor who completed his Msc and Phd in a UK university about 7 years ago ( i think it was Central Lancashire,i'm 95% sure, if my memory is right) and i am surprised by his words.All below are about engineering field.

According to him, it does not matter where you get your MSc, all employers will treat all masters the same except from Oxford and Cambridge,only these two will make you stand out.Thus,for the rest of the Universities the following 2 things: ''what you pay is what you get '' and ''prestige'' are non existent!

Even if you attend one of the very bottom listed Uni. in UK ranks you are not doomed,they all seem to have very good quality masters programs.They big difference between top and bottom ranked UK Universities is the workload and difficulty.As he told me,all the top tiered schools demand from you to deal with super heavy homework,study non stop 24/7,tight deadlines and be super good in mathematics.As a result,it is more likely to fail,drop out,walk away in debt and with empty hands,no degree.Lower tier shcools are more flexible,less rigorous and demand less mathematics and success is more probable.

What are your thoughts,opinions??

 

[Shaun_W]

Well firstly the HR people that read application forms and CVs don't tend to know what the good and not so good engineering universities are, so your professor is right.

Secondly it depends a lot on the job. A lot of engineering jobs don't really use much if any maths, so a qualification that is largely based on the application of advanced maths won't add much to your application to these types of jobs.

There is certainly no doubt that many MSc degrees are merely money-spinners for the university: most know that the primary purchasers of MSc degrees are foreign students who are mainly buying into the brand name of the university so they can take it home with the and woo everyone, and they charge handsomely for the privilege.

However it doesn't really work like that here in the UK, as your professor says. You cannot buy entry into most jobs via academic qualifications. A lot of people are paying a lot of money for masters degrees that aren't going to benefit them if they want to stay here because they aren't the right type of people that British engineering firms are looking for. The vast majority of interviews I've had have been much more heavily based on my soft skills rather than technical skills.