Engineering Students, past and present, read this

[tahadar]

If you have any particular questions pertaining to imperial, feel free to pm me

I'm currently in High school and thinking of applying for aerospace engineering in Imperial College London. What can i do to increase my chance of getting in?

By the way, im in australia right now.

Hey there,

If you have the opportunity, you should definitely take part in any small project that would prove your interest in engineering (project does not have to be aero-related). For example, I took part in this robotics competition when I was in the last 2 years of high school. Of course, you should have good grades as well, ideally in maths and physics.

On a side note, I had the opportunity to venture into the Honda windtunnel in our department the other day and found a 40% model of the walrus nose run by williams back in 2004! Word is that a well-placed F1 team might be bringing a preliminary model of their 2010 car to the windtunnel over the next couple of months

[RacingManiac]

1/ Where are you/did you study?

BS Mechanical Engineering at University of Toronto

2/ What do you think of the course? (Good facilites? ect)

Decent course plan, in my years in school we didn't have as much option for specialization and streams for mech(now they have more specialization from 2nd year on), but it covers all the bases and teaches what an engineer should know. Prof. is a toss-up because it really depends on whether they give a damn about teaching. Labs are alright, and some more relavent than others. The co-op year is good for making money and get out of school work experience before you graduate.

3/ Brief run down of the parts of the course (subjects) you enjoyed the most.

I like strutural and mechanic courses, also material. usually have fun labs and decent prof and TAs. But that does not correlate directly with marks;). I get better marks in electrical and fluid courses, but I am no fan of those courses...There are courses you have to put up with like diff. eqn. and other advanced math courses. You need to know them, but they are usually taught a lot more complicated than what you actually use in the upper year "actual" engineering courses.


4/ Any other comments.

Join an extracurriclar club like Formula SAE/Formula Student team. Thats where you get the real skills and experience. I used CAD/FEA for what they are intended for on the FSAE team for suspension components design, and I use that now for my work on suspension components design. The lab in school for those are over-simplifed and usually quite useless. And you work with people with same interest and goal as you and you learn from them(and vise-versa). Just be prepared to put in tonnes of time to get anything out of it. My upper years was like holding 2 full-time job at any time, either work on Co-Op jobs then go to work on the race car for another 8 hours after work, or go to school and have any hours not working on school spent on working on the race car. Its fun, its chracter building, and its tiring. But I can say without it I wouldn't have the job I have now. Its also great that our team did the best in its history during the years of my colleagues and I, so we are rightly proud of it.

[Houser]

1/ Where are you/did you study?

Currently BS Aerospace Engineering at the University of Central Florida, but for the Fall 2009 I am transferring to Stony Brook University in Long Island, NY. I have to switch to Mechanical Engineering because they don't offer Aerospace there.

2/ What do you think of the course? (Good facilites? ect)

After 2 years at UCF I think the courses plan is good, mechanical and aerospace plan are quite similar up until your senior year pretty much. The facilities at UCF are great especially for aerospace since Kennedy Space Center is only 50 minutes away. I have been in a few test labs and don;t have any complaints about them, but then again I don't work in any of them considering I have only studied 2 years here so far.

Don;t know that much about Stony Brook's facilities only toured there once, but I am sure they are great.

3/ Brief run down of the parts of the course (subjects) you enjoyed the most.

Right now I am in statics and think it's incredibly easy. The math courses were all pretty good, but diff equ is probably the toughest one for me. I am looking forward to taking dynamics/fluids and also materials courses. My favorite engineering course so far was Intro to Engineering 1 & 2 considering we had to make a marshmallow launcher and a boat to carry an orange around a fountain.

4/ Any other comments.

I wish the SAE Formula team was more present here, they say they have a team, but they don't really concentrate on it too much. Instead they concentrate on the SAE Baja competition. Overall, UCF I think is a great engineering school.

[jddh1]

1/ Where are you/did you study?

Currently BS Aerospace Engineering at the University of Central Florida, but for the Fall 2009 I am transferring to Stony Brook University in Long Island, NY. I have to switch to Mechanical Engineering because they don't offer Aerospace there.

2/ What do you think of the course? (Good facilites? ect)

After 2 years at UCF I think the courses plan is good, mechanical and aerospace plan are quite similar up until your senior year pretty much. The facilities at UCF are great especially for aerospace since Kennedy Space Center is only 50 minutes away. I have been in a few test labs and don;t have any complaints about them, but then again I don't work in any of them considering I have only studied 2 years here so far.

Don;t know that much about Stony Brook's facilities only toured there once, but I am sure they are great.

3/ Brief run down of the parts of the course (subjects) you enjoyed the most.

Right now I am in statics and think it's incredibly easy. The math courses were all pretty good, but diff equ is probably the toughest one for me. I am looking forward to taking dynamics/fluids and also materials courses. My favorite engineering course so far was Intro to Engineering 1 & 2 considering we had to make a marshmallow launcher and a boat to carry an orange around a fountain.

4/ Any other comments.

I wish the SAE Formula team was more present here, they say they have a team, but they don't really concentrate on it too much. Instead they concentrate on the SAE Baja competition. Overall, UCF I think is a great engineering school.

I was taking a course at Stony Brook one summer in Material Science. Unfortunately I thought the facilities were not that great for that department. But that was offset by the fact that we spent a lot of time at Brookhaven National Lab.
Some of my friends studied Bio and their facilities were top notch. Not sure about Mechanical, but my guess would be pretty good because they had lots of space.
Good luck in Long Island. If you get a chance to get into a project at Brookhaven take it because not only does that look good on your record, but they also have top equipment there. And let's not forget, very clever people as well.

[Houser]

1/ Where are you/did you study?

Currently BS Aerospace Engineering at the University of Central Florida, but for the Fall 2009 I am transferring to Stony Brook University in Long Island, NY. I have to switch to Mechanical Engineering because they don't offer Aerospace there.

2/ What do you think of the course? (Good facilites? ect)

After 2 years at UCF I think the courses plan is good, mechanical and aerospace plan are quite similar up until your senior year pretty much. The facilities at UCF are great especially for aerospace since Kennedy Space Center is only 50 minutes away. I have been in a few test labs and don;t have any complaints about them, but then again I don't work in any of them considering I have only studied 2 years here so far.

Don;t know that much about Stony Brook's facilities only toured there once, but I am sure they are great.

3/ Brief run down of the parts of the course (subjects) you enjoyed the most.

Right now I am in statics and think it's incredibly easy. The math courses were all pretty good, but diff equ is probably the toughest one for me. I am looking forward to taking dynamics/fluids and also materials courses. My favorite engineering course so far was Intro to Engineering 1 & 2 considering we had to make a marshmallow launcher and a boat to carry an orange around a fountain.

4/ Any other comments.

I wish the SAE Formula team was more present here, they say they have a team, but they don't really concentrate on it too much. Instead they concentrate on the SAE Baja competition. Overall, UCF I think is a great engineering school.

I was taking a course at Stony Brook one summer in Material Science. Unfortunately I thought the facilities were not that great for that department. But that was offset by the fact that we spent a lot of time at Brookhaven National Lab.
Some of my friends studied Bio and their facilities were top notch. Not sure about Mechanical, but my guess would be pretty good because they had lots of space.
Good luck in Long Island. If you get a chance to get into a project at Brookhaven take it because not only does that look good on your record, but they also have top equipment there. And let's not forget, very clever people as well.

I will definitely keep a look out for any openings for projects there, thanks for the heads up!

[Sinbinner X]

1/ University of New Mexico BS Mechanical Engineering Now I am perusing the Phd @ University of Wisconsin-Madison working in the Engine Research Center

2/ Only other school besides Virgina that has FSAE as a class and not a club.

3/ Nothing was better to learn about racecar dynamics then ME 405 Vehicle dynamics

4/ 5 of the 24 students employed by Honda R&D were from NM 4 were from UNM FSAE