Advanced Careers With Engineering Education

There are a great number of areas to consider in the field of engineering. Those looking for a career in aeronautical engineering or automotive engineering are likely to be seeking work with challenge and innovation.

The United Kingdom boasts a very technically advanced aerospace sector comprising of over six hundred companies turning over more than seventeen billion between them, according to Loughborough University. Automotive design, development and production are significant employers, and the UK motorsport industry is recognised globally.

Highly Regarded Training

There are many internationally recognised British university degree courses that train students to a very high level in both auto and aero engineering. Graduates can also follow on and take a PhD or MSc if they wish. (There are of course less academic college courses available around the country). Degree courses can be studied with or without an industrial placement year. Engineering departments often have good links with industry for gaining work experience.

Certain course options will offer students the chance to study part-time, on a sandwich course basis. If you're prepared to agree to work for a particular organisation following graduation, you may be able to negotiate a sponsorship deal. Whatever your circumstances and ambitions, look into as many training alternatives as possible.

Engineering - Automotive

Auto engineering concerns all aspects of motor vehicles, from conception to assembly. Today, it incorporates elements not only of mechanical and electrical engineering, but also electronic, safety and software engineering. There are many new technologies in the automotive arena, so a great deal to think about for the student who's just getting started.

If you take the critical path of a vehicle, you have design, development and then manufacture. The first stage involves the design or product engineers. They are the people who design and test the components and systems on a vehicle. We have development engineers next, who are rather like systems engineers. They liaise with designers with regard to technical specifications and so on. Determining how to make the automobile is the job of the manufacturing engineers.

An automotive engineering student will be taught many product disciplines. The various elements of your training will ensure you become proficient in core automotive subjects like engine design and vehicle dynamics. Safety is a top priority, and so all elements of a design will be tested via crash simulations and test dummies etc. As well as performing well by themselves, each component and system has to work in synergy with everything else. And so training must include elements of development engineering. Sometimes systems or components have conflicting aims, and a trade-off has to be made to deliver both satisfactorily. Development engineers ultimately have to be sure that everything on the completed vehicle not only meets the manufacturers spec, but is also compliant with the latest regulations.

Following on from the product and development stages, comes the processes needed for manufacturing. Automotive manufacturing engineers plan both the building of the component parts and the entire vehicle. Tasks include equipment design and machine specifications as well as people layout and management.

Aeronautical-Engineering

Our obsession with flight over the years has created this very diverse and exciting branch of engineering. If you qualify at degree level or above in Aeronautical Engineering, you will have proved yourself worthy to enter the fascinating business of aerospace. (Formula One design engineers use aerospace technology as well, if that appeals to you).

Flight vehicles are faced with huge stresses on take-off, flight and landing. Consequently the building of an aircraft will take many engineering disciplines and aeronautical engineers will all deal in specialist technologies.

With a strong emphasis on analytics, training will include all aspects of design, materials, forces and integration of systems. Analytical methods will be developed which allow aeronautical engineers to design and analyse aircraft. Study is divided into theoretical mathematical elements and empirical testing - much of which is done by computerised simulations in commercial environments.

Even so, huge structural testing machines and indeed wind tunnels are actually important teaching aids for student engineers.Applying yourself to practical applications is an important engineering principle. All engineering students will get the chance to contribute to a practical group assignment to create an automobile or flight vehicle. Engineering degrees will also allow students to learn various other subjects and skills. Such areas as time-management, writing skills and presenting can all help at interview.

The aerospace industry provides excellent career development into a variety of technical and managerial roles. Graduate engineers can apply to Professional Institutions to become certified with the Engineering Council - an organisation that works to ensure the UK is well served by its engineering resources.