Engineering

Overview

The following specialisations are available within our Engineering course:

• Aerospace and Aerothermal Engineering
• Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering
• Electrical and Electronic Engineering
• Electrical and Information Sciences
• Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
• Engineering for the Life Sciences
• Information and Computer Engineering
• Instrumentation and Control
• Mechanical Engineering

See the Course outline tab or Department website for further details.

Engineering at Cambridge

The Cambridge course is unique. It isn't a 'general' course but allows you to keep your options open while equipping you with all the analytical, design and computing skills that underpin modern engineering practice.

Part I provides a broad education in engineering fundamentals, enabling you to make a genuinely informed choice about the area in which to specialise from your third year (many students change direction as a result). Part II then provides in-depth training in your chosen professional discipline.

Department and facilities

The Department is a leading international centre for research, consistently ranked the highest amongst British universities. We also have strong links with industry, with many research projects funded by industrial companies.

Our facilities are excellent: the Design and Project Office is equipped with more than 80 workstations; the library has 30,000 books and takes about 350 journals; and extensive mechanical and electrical workshops are available. The Department's Language Programme for Engineers offers specialised courses at all levels in French, German, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese.

Accreditation

The course is accredited by all the major institutions, including the Institutions of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE), Engineering and Technology (IET), Civil Engineers (ICE), and Structural Engineers (IStructE), the Institute of Measurement and Control, the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine, and the Royal Aeronautical Society. An appropriate combination of Part II papers is required in each case.

Industrial experience

You're required to complete four weeks of industrial experience by the end of the second year, and a further four weeks by the end of the third year, obtained by deferring entry or during vacations. Our full-time Industrial Placement Co-ordinator helps deferred entrants and undergraduates to find suitable placements (in the UK and abroad) and sponsorship.

Exchange programmes

About 10 per cent of our students spend their third year studying abroad through our exchange schemes with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), École Centrale Paris, the National University of Singapore (NUS), and the Technical University of Munich.

Changing course

Students may transfer to Chemical Engineering after the first year, or to Management Studies or Manufacturing Engineering after completing Engineering Part I.

Careers

When you graduate, you're fully qualified in your chosen area, knowledgeable across the range of engineering disciplines, and able to apply new technologies in novel situations, giving you an advantage over engineering graduates from other more narrowly focused courses. Employment prospects are typically excellent, with 98 per cent of our students finding a job within six months of graduating. The average starting salary of Cambridge Engineering graduates in 2011 was £28,800.