Engineering Students, past and present, read this

[100cc]

I know there are many who visit this site who are studing and have studied for an engineering degree and probably masters. Any Doctors?

My questions are:

1/ Where are you/did you study?

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

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

4/ Any other comments.

Particularly like to hear if anyone is at Imperial College London.

Cheers,
Laury

[akbar21881]

Answering the question...

I know there are many who visit this site who are studing and have studied for an engineering degree and probably masters. Any Doctors?

My questions are:

1/ Where are you/did you study?

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

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

4/ Any other comments.

Particularly like to hear if anyone is at Imperial College London.

Cheers,
Laury

I'm studying in University of Bristol in 4th year Aeronautical Engineering.
The course is very good and the facilities are mostly good and course project are interesting,particularly the one that was done in collaboration with Airbus.I enjoyed the project to engineer and aircraft which was done in conjunction with Airbus. The facilities is excellent especially in terms of speciality and availibility of raw material in conducting in research project.As a results of that I had an unlimited "play time" with composite material and I am free to made as many things as I want in my research complete with a custom made test platform.

the subject that I enjoyed most is aerodynamics,structures,materials and computing. I learned a lot from each of this subject and they enhance my knowledge about my main interest,i.e F1 technology.


The only comment is...I heard Imperial College has a relationship with F1 team.Is that correct? I wish bristol also has one....

[West]

1) University of California in Irvine, CA, United STates

2) Decent... our labs are ghetto tho.

3) I only really enjoyed a statics and dynamics class, and turbulent flow. A prior fluid mechanics class, I didn't learn anything... I think the teacher just went off on stuff nobody knew about

4) Our Formula SAE team sucks.

[abisec]

mates heard of the cranfield university......william sponsors few students ............. jakie stewart lectures.best cfd&aero labs....supposed to be the best out there if u wanna enter f1 from the tech gate........


im doin my second year in automotive engg. in mumbai.

[Scuderia_Russ]

http://www.motorsport.cranfield.ac.uk

[Monstrobolaxa]

That you heard about is the masters....Williams sponsors 2 students from the Motorsport Management and Engineering Masters....but you have to be from the UK to be a candidate for the "sponsorship".

I study aeronautical engineering in the only university that has it in Portugal.....UBI, another university IST has Aerospacial Engineering.....well we have the 2nd largest wind tunnel (and a few small ones...and we have a Mach 1 wind tunnel) in Portugal (the biggest is the airforces wind tunnel in conjunction with IST if I'm not mistaken....materials lab....testing equipment for fatigue....etc....

It's a 5 year course...it isn't a bachelour or a MAsters...it's a licenciurship....don't know if this word existes in english....basicly after this....we can get a masters...then a Phd.....while if we go to the UK we're considerer as a Master(s) with honours....

The course it self is more or less like discribed up there....

[West]

I should add that we don't havea Formula SAE team this year (all the spots filled up before class even started)... and our group switched to Mini Baja... yippee... 10 hp

[Lafora]

Hell will freeze over before any of our formula guys join the morons at Baja in my school.

I cannot believe the things I hear the baja guys in my school says sometimes. Will make sure I take notes and share with you all next time.

[WhiteBlue]

I did Aachen University 30 years ago with a doctor. They have a very solid reputation and some very good chairs on the dynamics. I don't think they would be much into F1 though. they traditinally have been on the cutting edge in glider aerodynamics with a club that had many record braking designs. the engine labs were state of the art then and received huge R&D orders from the automotive industry. some of the guys made it to F1 on the engine side I heard.

[slimjim8201]

1. Virginia Tech (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University to be exact)

2. Course was awesome. Had a few bad apply teachers but that happens at all schools. Facilities are top notch.

3. Strange, but my diff eq class was amazing. Horribly boring subject with a phenomenal teacher. Only course that I never missed a single class. Best course by far was my Formula SAE senior design. Learned more about real world engineering and myself as an engineer than anything else in college. I apply those skills every day at work. FSAE rocks, no matter how good or bad the car performs.

4. Day of remembrance for VT today. 4/16

[MrT]

1/ Where are you/did you study?
UK, Studied BEng (Hons) Motorsport Engineering and design at Swansea Institute of HE. Then completed an MRes in Computer Modelling in Engineering at Swansea Uni, now doing a PhD in Computer Modelling in Engineering so i'm on my way to becoming a Doctor!

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

SIHE course was great. Facilities were good, lecturers varied from phenomenal to dire! Very practical engineering based with the basic requirements for the BEng status.

3/ Brief run down of the parts of the course (subjects) you enjoyed the most.
Vehicle dynamics was taught badly but was my area of interest.
The computer skill tuition was good.
Engine modules were second to none.

4/ Any other comments.
Did Formula student in 04, and 05 and doing it again this year and next.

[Jersey Tom]

1/ Where are you/did you study?

BS Mechanical Engineering, University of Colorado @ Boulder.

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

At the undergrad level, what you put in is what you get out. Some good professors, some not so good. Some awesome facilities (fabrication in general), some not as much. Lots of stuff to get involved in though. I worked in and ran an instrument shop, worked for 4 years in an Aerospace lab developing life science research payloads for NASA, and did Formula SAE for 3 years. The combination of everything is what prepared me for real world.

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

The ones taught by the best professors. FSAE was by far the most fun and the most valuable. Other than that, I liked design and fabrication. History of Jazz and Italian were also awesome!

4/ Any other comments.

Its more about the student than the university. Doesn't make a damn bit of difference if you go to Cranfield or Colorado or U Conn.. if you don't have the drive and motivation learn on your own, or to push yourself to the next level. On one hand, if you do have that drive, it is nice to be at a place like Cranfield where you have more tie-ins to get into. On the other hand, it's also kind of nice to go to a place with fewer resources because you learn real quick how to be resourceful and make the most out of very little.

[tahadar]

1. Currently in London, enrolled in an MEng degree in Aeronautical Engineering at Imperial College, London

2. In my second year right now, so i can only speak of Part I of the course. With the exception of the mathematics lecturer, all the professors were great, and some were extremely funny. Facilities are quite good, as we have several windtunnels including a 60% tunnel made with Honda collaboration and also a supersonic tunnel. Labs are a bit dated and the windtunnel experiment we did involved a a computer at least 15 years old with only a floppy drive. other than that the fabrication facilities are great, and we have at least 1 autoclave large enough to create most F1 car bits.

They have Formula student here, but since the Mech engineers do it as part of their final year projects, anyone from outside mecheng only has a limited role in the design of the vehicle. You only get to help assemble and mess around with the older cars.

3. I'll rank the 1st year subjects:

Definitely liked:
- Aerodynamics
- Aircraft Performance
- Structural Analysis
- Management
- Engineering Design (included learning how to use Pro/Engineer CAD software)

Somewhere in the middle:
- Thermodynamics
- Mechanics
- Computing
- Materials

Didn't like much:
- Mathematics (poor lecturers, course itself was something you could teach yourself from engineering mathematics textbooks)

4.
Apparently Ferrari, among other teams have done plenty of research at imperial in the past. currently the honda tunnel, accoring to one of my lecturers, is in operation at 10-15% of its capacity, with f1 teams using it for model testing. The aero building is a bit outdated but the department will be moved into a brand new building as part of a £150+ million revampment plan by 2011, and there are big plans for the exhibition road area in the runup to the olympic games.

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

[pjobmathew]

I bumped into this another fantastic course in USA,the institute is called Universal Technical Institute,it offers motor repair and maintainence courses for Automobiles,Motorcycles,Trucks,nascar racing cars,Marine vehicles.I particularly liked the Motorcycle dept. They even have manufacturer specific training where we can choose our preferable manufacturer,the offered ones being all 4 Japanese biggies,Buell and Harley Davidson. They claim that on completion of the course you would be placed in the respective company's workshop.The manufacturer based option being true for the Automobile courses also where in they have Porsche also!
The link

http://www.uti.edu/Home/tabid/36/Default.aspx

[freedom_honda]

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.