Imperial College PhD v Cranfield University Motorsport MSc.

[schumy7]

I have a serious decision to make. I'm choosing from a Msc Motorsport Engineering in Cranfield University or a PhD aerodynamics project in Imperial College. I have the offer from Cranfield already but not from IC yet.

My question is what is a typical career path of a PhD in Motorsport, especially in aerodynamics? The thing I am afraid of is that after my PhD program, I still won't have much experience in any part of a racing car except aerodynamics. I don't want to stay in University and do research as my career.

Thanks for any input!!! I would really appreciate it!!

[ReubenG]

Please excuse any bias shown in my post - I am currently working toward a PhD in mechanical engineering.

I don't know the curriculum at Cranfield so I won't really comment on it. From a general career point of view, Imperial is rated Top 10 worldwide for sciences / engineering so a PhD from there is always going to stand you in good stead, even if you go with an industry job vs academic research.

From the perspective of pursuing a career as an engineer/designer in motorsport: I would suspect that positions within a racing team are highly specialised and that a PhD (in a field very relevant to motor racing) would be more valuable than a MSc. Even if the MSc is geared towards motorsport, you will probably have a dissertation/major research project which focusses on one particular area. For a taught MSc this would be not much more than 6 months work - so not a very detailed investigation in comparison to the 3 years spent on a PhD.

Before you make any decisions, I would try to get in touch with some of the graduates of Cranfield's program and establish where it's gotten them: did they get jobs in racing teams or did they have to go on and specialise further (i.e. do a PhD anyway).

[schumy7]

Thank you for your reply. I have talked a professor in Cranfield Motorsprot program and he stated that more than 2/3 of the graduates have gotten jobs in race teams and only 1 or 2 students last year went on for further study. He also made a comment that a PhD is a bit "over educated" for motorsport. A race team rather hire a young fresh MSc than an older PhD student.

That said, the things you said about the prestige of Imperial College is certainly a huge factor. There are indeed some exceptionaly good engineers working in motorsport graduated in IC PhD. The thing I am not sure how valid is the professors comment about "over education". What are the current career prospects for PhD graduates in motorsprot?

[RacingManiac]

One of my friend have recently finished her program at Cranfield and is currently working at a FIA-GT outfit as race/data engineer for race strategy. I think the Cranfield program gives you a good chance for direct networking oppotunity to the motorsport industry, and pending on your thesis/design project topic you can work on specific area of the motorsport engineering. My friend did her stuff with Honda F1 on area of composite structure and you get to work directly with their people on your project. There are also curriculum design project in conjunction with Prodrive every year, so further oppotunity there. As it is a MSc program I'd imagine you have already the background for the meaty part of most of the work, the program just helps you to integrate that to your field of choosing.

[preamnath]

I've been trying to get a proper answer for this but couldn't get in touch with people who are into racing or motor sports or something. i tried asking in a lot of forums.
i'm an automobile engineer from india and i would love to make my career in the field or racing. so i tot i would head to Uk for my higher studies in motor sport engineering . i have applied for motorsport an automotive engineering in Brunel university and i got the offer letter an also from leeds an coventry for automotive engineering. so i want an expertise opinion about these collages an more about cranfield cos i dint apply for it.
it would be of great help for me if any of you who know about universities and about the racing industry could guide in the proper path to reach my goal

Thanking you for your response and guidance.