Aero Eng Degree?

[PilotPieces]

Hello all,

Just wondering what one can expect after completing a BSc is Aeronautical Engineering? I am aware of a few graduate schemes run by companies, typically a two year paid course but what other options are there when walking out with the degree?

Just trying to broaden my knowledge before I make any decisions.

Thanks in advance.

[lovezzin]

Hey!

First of all, i believe you will graduate with a BEng in 'Aeronautical Engineering', not a BSc.

Upon Graduation, with a degree in Aeronautical Engineering, the world is pretty much your Oyster! Aero-Eng is a very wide-spread engineering discipline and as such, you will find you can not only enter pretty much any mechanical-based engineering industry, but you can go into finance, accounting...etc etc!

I graduated with a BEng in Aeronautical Engineering in 2007, to just name a few things my friends from Uni have gone into with their degree:

Engineering: Jet Engine Design [Rolls Royce], Helicopter Design [AgustaWestland], Product Design [3M], Formula 1!! Scientific Research [QinetiQ], Airline Engineering [British Airways] and many other good companies [Airbus, Baesystems etc]

Non-Engineering: Accounting, Banking & Finance, RAF (Pilot), CTC Aviation (airline pilot training), Nokia,

Your degree would give you many tranbsferable skills especially for any analytical based work!!

If you wish to go into Engineering, YES, there are 2-YEAR gaduate ''training'' schemes, they dont pay too much (enough to survive - Typically £18,000 - £23,000) and are designed to cater for future middle-managers. 99% of the time within these companies running these schemes, there are direct-entry positions, which means you go straight into a job, earn real money (Typically in first 2 years £24,000 - £28,000) and start contributing the the aerospace industry through design [Leaving a legacy behind you!]. I myself am on a direct-entry Graduate position and I love it, I earn much more than i spend, I travel internationally (actually just got back from 1 week away 2 hours ago!!), I have real responsibility in my job role, I work as part of an international design team (on the program im currently working on) and my work is constantly challenging!!

If you wish to make a career out of Engineering, i suggest you stay for 1 further year and Uni and graduate with an MEng, making life easier when it comes to Chartership. Otherwise you could find yourself only being able to reach Incoroperated Engineer status :(

[Genghis the Engineer]

Lovezzin covers it pretty well I think - my only slight disagreement would be that the graduate schemes do make it much easier to make CEng, and that BEng+MSc is at-least as good as an MEng.

I did the graduate training scheme thing (not recently!) and it is something of a double-edged sword. The employer wants to train you to fit a nice convenient cubbyhole somewhere, but on the other hand they have to give you a broad base of experience to keep Eng.C/RAeS happy, and you can with care milk that very much to your own benefit. There's little to actually force you to stay there unless they give you the jobs you want and once getting towards CEng status you're very employable.

There is a risk of becoming over-specialised, but if you chase the stuff you want to do, and use what you got out of your degree effectively - you can do pretty well.

The odds are you'll never make it rich mind you, but neither are you ever likely to either feel hard up or bored. It is all about getting to play with lots of big toys!

In 20ish years since I kicked off I've clocked up a lot of flight testing, time working on an aircraft carrier, supersonic wind tunnel testing, managing big and small flying labs, overseen approval of whole aircraft designs, designed bits of aeroplanes, occasionally put overalls on and worked on them, written a book, appeared in court as an expert witness, managed small and large times (and nobody at-all), travelled to 20odd countries for work, taught from BEng up to PhD levels. I'm having great fun and whilst the BEng is ***** hard work (as was the PhD I followed up with a few years later), wouldn't have had half as much fun without.

G

[Miles Gustaph]

Good, well informed advice by all!

Another perspective though, and please forgive any perception of negativity, this is merely meant for illustrative purpose only... the opinions above are from people who either have, or know people who it would appear have done quite well for themselves.

But to put another perspective, I have several friends who have good quality Aeronautical Engineering degrees and just couldn't get a job in the industry.
Just as a comment from my own perspective, there is a lot of serious competition out there for any of the jobs in aviation that need a degree, and there are even fewer of them that could remotely be described as "fun"; of my friends with degrees that did get jobs in the aviation sector most left as the jobs left them feeling unfulfilled.

While I freely admit that my comments maybe somewhat of a generalization, with numerous exceptions, aviation jobs that need degrees don't directly have a lot to do with aircraft, for example.
Designers who, by and large have degrees, don't have a need to see an aircraft every day, or every month, maybe less... is that the Aviation job that would inspire after three years of studying at University? In my organization a number of the senior management have degrees, but MBA's... not engineering degrees, yet every member of middle and senior management bar a couple were licensed engineers.

I personally feel that the engineering arm of the industry could do with a bloody serious shake-up to promote engineering, and better inform the bright eyed youth about how the many layers of the industry fit together, so that those dreamy eyed graduates who enter the industry are not disillusioned within ...well weeks, and bugger off to work for the automotive industry.

Please don't think me too negative, I've been in the industry all my life, and like a colleague at work think that the industry is populated by "enthusiasts" and we muddle along. I've done the license, degree, masters etc stuff but think it's time the engineering arm of the industry was shaken up and reformed so we have the engineers, of whatever grade or qualification that we need to move forward.

[PilotPieces]

Thank you for the informative replies so far.

To be slightly more specific perhaps someone can point me in the right direction given my preferences in the industry.

What is available in regards to coming straight out of uni into a job (eg, no grad scheme etc). When I did an Aero Eng course at college I found that although the technical/hands on side was more interesting I was told that I was working at a higher level and should be looking at university as opposed to an apprenticeship.

My little secret is I quite like flying the things as well so a career change by the time I am 27/28 will be on the mind, hence why I would like to get straight into a job after uni.

[Genghis the Engineer]

To some extent, I'd follow the level you enjoy working at most, and don't necessarily take a degree simply because your teachers think that you should. If on the other hand you enjoy the more theoretical side of life, then go for the degree, and there are many great jobs to be had (notwithstanding MG's fair point that we enthusing about what a degree does for you, are those who benefitted most from this).

Regarding straight-in versus graduate-trainee, to be honest I'd go for the graduate traineeship if you can get it. They still pay pretty well, you'll get a lot more experience - and by 26/27 if you've pushed hard, you've got a good chance of being a Chartered Engineer - which is a much more exportable qualification than a degree alone. Getting CEng so fast having gone straight into a single job is much harder because you won't necessarily get the initial breadth of experience that straight into a job, particularly with a larger company, will give you.

Me, I love flying and Engineering and have managed so far not to let go of either - albeit that neither has been necessarily mainstream (to be honest, both mainstream engineering and flying careers are most-often incompatible with a high involvement with the other, the main exception being my first love of test flying).

G

[since 1990]

which uni is well-known on course like ,bachelor degree in aircraft/aerospace engineering?