Engineering apprenticeships

Ive got a HNC in mechanical engineering and have completed a Advanced Modern Apprenticeship I have everything but a degree in mechanical engineer and wish I had a degree
Stus right most employers these days are looking for grads they can get maching done abroad or by veteran workers, getting a machinist job these days can be difficult

Go to uni I went and did a media degree and loved my time at uni, go to uni as Stu says youll love it

in a perfect world i would like to do something with electrical engineering and the sort where you make stuff or machines

my work expierence was with a company who service the robots in car plants, i have a qulification in progamming them now that would be a good job for me as i really liked it

the reason im thinking more of going for apprenticeships is beacuse i want to be making stuff and im getting bored of studying etc

thanks for the advice, really appreicate it

alex

Yeah I agree, a difference in opinion.
Maybe depends on the employer.
In computer animation qualifications are not needed. I was not asked once to show that I had done any education. I could of got this job with no degree, A levels or GCSEs.
This is also the same in other companies and widely discussed.

I guess there are certain jobs which require you to have a degree. But there are occasions where I chat with a few friends and the topic of conversation is the lack of use of degrees. Saying Degrees are only useful for special fields......like marcos. I then jump in and tell them that they are completely wrong.

Considering that Stu has told me otherwise that degrees are still needed in certain fields. Speak to some one in the working field that you want to apply to and get there advice. Avoid just speaking to universities. They will just convince you that you field does need a degree and you do need to apply to this university.

Regarding CGI degrees are not needed but it sure helped me. Three years to improve me skills gave me a good start to getting a job. However if your awesome before university then you wont benefit much.

Marco Said - They will just convince you that you field does need a degree and you do need to apply to this university. Hehe yeah heeeeesss sooo right there.

Thing is i know plenty of people who could write a database information process software programn blah balh balh alot better than me, and they neve even completed A-Levels... but they dont have the paper work to back them up to get the job. I have the job as i proved i can do it, they dont have a job in that field as they cant really prove it. Even now when my Job is going to send me out to a clients place to do some computer work, even that company wants to see my CV to make sure i have a degree and im good enough for the job! Its scary!

Some jobs like CGI and Art/ Design its all about showing off what you have all ready done - a portfolio kind of style thing. then fair play. Id hire someone who shows me some ace designs and so on than someone who has nothing but a degree. This subject crops up all the time, even on the other forums im part of. One of lifes things. Some people are lucky and some are not.

But something like Electrical Engineering is a pro job and you need to prove your safe and know what your doing, eg a Degree or high qualification.

But if i had the time and money, id go back to Uni and do ANY course just to get back to Uni. The skills and how it helps you grow as a person is great.

Mr Stu

and then there are the awesome parties, waking up at 2pm with the realisation that you have missed all the days lectures so you get ready to party again, waking up in random locations, waking up with random objects....I could go on :proud:

Well i was at Uni for 2 years doing Motorsport engineering. Same qualification as any other MechEng degree but abit more speciallised to suite.
Reading through course structure I figured there was alot of maths, but maths directed at what i want to do, and along with that some Design work and calculations and testing of racing car chassiss and components.
In actual fact all it was was PURE maths, every subject was another type of pure maths with a fancy name.
The only interesting lecture was thermofluids (thermo dynamics and fluid mechanics).
We did not do a SINGLE bit of practicle to put the maths we were learning into use, or to help understand it.
My main gripe was if you did something wrong, you wouldnt ever be tols what you did wrong, just that it was wrong. Every nmber you calculated meant absolubtly nothing to anyone that was working it out, it was just a calculation that came up with a number in the thousands. Without the practical side of analysing these number and seeing what they physically do makes all this learning pointless to me.
All it means is that i can remember a 5 line equation and punch in numbers!

In the end, I left uni. I had 3 months off my first year and came back the day before my first exam due to an opperation. I passed all but 1 exam.
As my course at Brunel University was the highest standard i could do they stopped any retakes, but due to my circumstances they allowed me to do that entire module again with my others the next year. last year i was off for 3 weeks during coursework and exams with a kidney and brain infection and fell too far behind to be able to catch up and so i left.

Im pleased i left.
I had over 30 hours of lectures a week, all pure maths. No hands on work and i believe i can get a better job just with my experience and 4 As at A-level (100% Dinstinctions in Computer Aided Engineering diploma and A in further maths).

I dont understand why any employer would take on a graduate who just knows equations. They dont know what the hell they mean, but they know the numbers. They dont know how an engine works, they dont know how to tap a hole (both examples of top people on my course).
So how on earth can you be able to calculate and design a component when you dont know how its made?

My rant over lol.

haha gary - i know what you mean. Although it wasnt very often for me, there was physically no time.

quote:

And i feel for you also Gary, glad it wasnt me... we had a module in Information Process Managment (annoying module to say the least) and they give us some guy from Iran who speaks English like he just arrived in the county for the first time (even though he lived here for 25 years) and goes off on tangents alot and speaks rubbish and gave us slides to read but were no use really. And then had a go when we only got Bs. And it was a module you HAD to complete, or you re did it again. 40% class failed and had to have him again, woop woop. LOL.

Ill tell him that! :rofl:

I did the same course as grant did at college (computer aided engineering deploma) then started my aprenticeship

my work expierence was with a company who service the robots in car plants, i have a qulification in progamming them now that would be a good job for me as i really liked it

Thats exactly what i do now.. robot arms look cool the first few times you watch them, but it gets boring real quick.

No offence stu- but the engineering industrie is alot different to IT.. you can learn database work at uni and impliment it straight away at work i imagine.

Doing 10 line equations that mean nothing, then being expected to design components then manufacture them is totaly different after just being shown a page full of maths and never shown into a workshop... most the maths you get taught during an engineering degree is pretty much un-necassairy or never implimented in the real world- as grant said.

I started a degree course with my company at the start of the year.. my company cut my funding when they bothered to read my notes and look into what happened in the lectures because they didnt find it relavent to what goes on in reality.

which company do you work for/with Dave?

thanks for the help people