I got my CEng before they brought in the MEng requirement, so my BEng(Hons) was enough. The requirement for an MEng came in with SARTOR II I think, sometime in the mid 1990s. But, you needed another 4 years in industry after your degree then, and still do now. I have to confess I'm not totally convinced by the need for an MEng - if the Eng.C have in their wisdom decided to impose an extra year's requirement, I'd rather do a more directed MSc either full or part time after you've graduated and started earning - but that's not the current trend I realise.
FlyFreeWbe is absolutely right about the first year of the degree, it's deadly - death by maths, stressing, theoretical aerodyamics, and (my personal least favourite) thermodynamics. As you get a bit further on through your degree you start to realise why that was necessary - it's all of the building blocks upon which the interesting stuff is built. The second year gets more interesting, and the third (+ fourth) is downright fascinating - as has been most of my real work since.
I recall a couple of nights a week that I used to be up to 3am in the 1st year just keeping my maths in particular up to speed - and that was after two good A-levels in it and 1½ days per week at the local technical college during my year-out.
I used to escape about once a month to the local aircraft museum for half a day, apart from being a nice museum it helped me remember why the hell I was putting up with all this death by higher mathematics (although pretty much all of it, except some of the more complex calculus, I've subsequently used - so it is necessary).
G
N.B. I can see why they do it, but what sort of disturbed mind was it thought of doing calculus to complex formulae in the first place?