Quality of Irish Engineering Graduates

Neodymium

After reading some disheartening posts on boards.ie regarding the quality of university engineering graduates from Irish universities. I have become very worried whether engineering is the path I should choose when I finish school. I love maths/physics/chemistry in school and really could not see myself working in any area, other than engineering.

What I am wondering is, do you think that the standard of engineering in universities in Ireland is of a poor standard compared to other countries?

Do you think that you are as competent in your field of engineering as your colleagues from the US/UK/Europe?

Thanks for reading and any replies would be greatly appreciated.

Dunphus

Neodymium wrote: »

After reading some disheartening posts on boards.ie regarding the quality of university engineering graduates from Irish universities. I have become very worried whether engineering is the path I should choose when I finish school. I love maths/physics/chemistry in school and really could not see myself working in any area, other than engineering.

What I am wondering is, do you think that the standard of engineering in universities in Ireland is of a poor standard compared to other countries?

Do you think that you are as competent in your field of engineering as your colleagues from the US/UK/Europe?

Thanks for reading and any replies would be greatly appreciated.

I am doing a postgrad over in Holland and the moment and found myself more or less at the same standard of all the other international students who were in my faculty. Where as some did far more subjects than I had done for the most part everyone had a similar Bachelor with one or two different courses, in fact my Icelandic friend studied a book by one of my old lecturers in UCD during his studies. Most of the international students had to do one catch up class to put them on the same level as the Dutch which was a basic dynamics course.

The thing I found about Continental europe however is that they usually come from a 5 year tied bachelor and master programme so its expected of them to go on to do a master degree after the bachelor before starting to work which seems to be different to the 4 year Bachelor and 1 or 2 year master degree route that we have in Ireland and the UK, but I think the Bologna treaty will even that out.

breadmonkey

Dunphus wrote: »

I am doing a postgrad over in Holland and the moment and found myself more or less at the same standard of all the other international students who were in my faculty. Where as some did far more subjects than I had done for the most part everyone had a similar Bachelor with one or two different courses, in fact my Icelandic friend studied a book by one of my old lecturers in UCD during his studies. Most of the international students had to do one catch up class to put them on the same level as the Dutch which was a basic dynamics course.

The thing I found about Continental europe however is that they usually come from a 5 year tied bachelor and master programme so its expected of them to go on to do a master degree after the bachelor before starting to work which seems to be different to the 4 year Bachelor and 1 or 2 year master degree route that we have in Ireland and the UK, but I think the Bologna treaty will even that out.

Ah young Dunphus. I think I know you, are you in Delft?

Anyway, I'm doing a postgrad in London at the moment and I would consider myself to be at the same level as the rest of the class. In fact, the Irish all seem to be very hard-working in general and typically do very well in the course (so I'm told).

Dunphus

breadmonkey wrote: »

Ah young Dunphus. I think I know you, are you in Delft?

Anyway, I'm doing a postgrad in London at the moment and I would consider myself to be at the same level as the rest of the class. In fact, the Irish all seem to be very hard-working in general and typically do very well in the course (so I'm told).

Delft indeed! I'm trying to think who I know studying in London, but I'm at a loss!

Darren1o1

Neodymium wrote: »

After reading some disheartening posts on boards.ie regarding the quality of university engineering graduates from Irish universities. I have become very worried whether engineering is the path I should choose when I finish school. I love maths/physics/chemistry in school and really could not see myself working in any area, other than engineering.

What I am wondering is, do you think that the standard of engineering in universities in Ireland is of a poor standard compared to other countries?

Do you think that you are as competent in your field of engineering as your colleagues from the US/UK/Europe?

Thanks for reading and any replies would be greatly appreciated.

I have found from working in Germany during internships, and in the USA after graduation (last 4 yrs), that we match up quite well. We do not do as much maths as the Germans (who do a 5 yr diplom) but I feel our reasoning skills (especially lateral thinking) are stronger. We have been given not all the knowledge but the skills to learn and grow into a role. The Germans being very direct, strong mathematical but rigid in applying principles.

I think we compare favorably the US in terms of content. I feel that my education in DCU compared very favorable to some of the best schools in the US (Having colleagues having studied at RPI and other top 10 schools). I think we go into more advanced topics (due to the liberal arts requirement in schools there), They are a little better rounded for it. They catch up at the masters level, having to take more classes. There are benefits to any system but most are relatively equivalent, given that there is mutual recognition of degrees/professional institutes.

Neodymium

Thank you very much to everyone for your replies, you have really made me feel better about doing engineering in Ireland. After reading some other posts on these forums I thought especially American colleges would be of a higher engineering standard, but apparently not, I guess like almost everything else you'll get back from your degree what you put in to it.

Thanks again.

miss no stars

I'm currently finishing up a structural engineering degree here at the moment. 2 summers ago I went to the USA on a J1 and met a guy who'd just finished a civil engineering degree in the UK. I had just finished 2nd year and tbh, even at that point I wasn't far behind him. I also know of people who went to the USA on exchanges and they found it crazy easy over there and struggled when they came back as their own class had moved so far ahead. Nothing wrong with the standard of irish engineering courses :cool:

Neodymium

Thanks again to everyone. I didn't mean to seem so critical of Irish universities, its just after reading posts like this one about UCC electrical engineering I became a bit worried.

i wouldnt recommend doing this course in UCC or in most (if not all) irish universities. theres very little practical element to the course, and youll basically come out after 4 years with no practical skills whatsoever. If youre doing the course cause youre interested in electronics and the thought of being able to design, fix and experiment with electronics, motors, electrical systems etc, youre going to come out very disillusioned after 4 years.

What you will be exposed to is a mish-mash collection of badly presented lectures, presented by mostly bored lecturers (many of whom have just progressed from grad degrees to post grad to lecturing positions - seeing the job as a handy number, and have little experience out in the real world of building and designing exceptions - there was one or 2 exceptions such as the guy doing the power electronics courses - who was well up on his stuff, and built his own company - but very much the exception).

The lack of enthusiasm and practicality (which is what engineering is about - the application of science to realworld solutions) in irish universities can be soul-destroying for a person that has keen aspirations to follow a career in something that really interests them.

youll discover that the course is a badly co-ordinated jumble of modules - physics, maths, chemistry etc, that are presented for a few months or semesters, and then let drop, and some other aspect will be presented the following year. there is no continuity or depth to anything. youll have no more knowledge of any area, than could be garnered in a few days by any person that spent a few days reading on the area. What should be developed continuously across the years are a a deep knowledge of relevant mathematics (linear algebra, calculus), physics (exploring a couple of relevant areas such as electromagnetism deeply, rather than presenting one course in 2nd year and then forgetting about it). and practical things that are required in actual job descriptions that youll be looking at in despair when you graduate after 4 years - there should be training in electronic circuit CAD software, Mathlab etc - not for a week here or there, but progressively over the course of 4 years - then you might actually be able to do something!

Theyll waffle it off, as thats what an engineer requires - an ability to hop from area to area and put things together.
However they misunderstand whats really going on. What you need is a thorough knowledge of how applied science works. you can only develop this by concentrating on a few areas, and seeing how people developed their theories, applied them to working solutions in the realworld and opened to different ideas.
So while an engineer may end up drawing on many different areas of knowledge, he should have a good knowledge of a few areas when graduating, and know how science/engineering works, and then open to whatever area he'll eventually pursue.

If you're interestd in electronics/electrical, id give serious thought to becoming an electrician. They earn more than any graduate elec engineers that I know, and youll be earning from day one. Youll be able to do practical things in your own house and life, and you can progress onto industry electrics, or avionics or whatever.
Alternatively if you have the backing to go to a real university with a culture of electronic and electrical engineering, whos lecturers will inspire you, go for it: MIT in the states etc.
As for UCC and elec eng - go down and see what last years grads are doing and where theyre working. Theyll tell you - "oh its a great course, you could get into anything: finance, management, IT". Dont buy this. The reason most of the grads end up in these areas is because they have no clue whatsoever about electronics or electrical afte 4 years, secondly any passion or hopes they entertained before entering college have long since been lost, and thirdly if youre in ireland, there's little or no history or culture of electronic/electrical industry. You can confirm this by going onto any irish job site such as gradireland.com, moster.ie, and looking for entry level graduate positions without experience and looking for available jobs - IN ELECTRONICS OR ELECTRICAL. there's little or nothing.

Then repeat the same thing going to an australian site such as seek.com.au or UK monster.co.uk - and youll begin to wonder who are these morons that write articles in irish daily papers, talking about the great shortage of electrical/electronic engineers in ireland - its no wonder - unless youve 10 years experience in some small area, there are practically no jobs. besides Intel, theres little else - and they put a freeze on recruitment anyway.

another feature of irish universities, is the big business of increasing turnover by peddling post-grad courses such as masters and phd. they're doing a good job of it, as their course at the bachelors graduate level are so pathetic, youll probably have no choice but to go on and do a masters or phd if you want to be able to do anyting - so figure on spending 6-8 years in uni doing elec eng, if you wanna have any skills in the field.
This is not the case in good US universities and technical colleges- friends who have attended there, have done a lot better, and surprise surprise, are still interested in science and engineering by the time they finish college.

As other people on the forum have noted, there is little practical info in the university courses. however i would go further and say that the theory that is presented is often done so poorly, and is often only tenuously related to the areas that you should be working on. If the theory was discussed in a logical and indepth manner, especially looking at how some guy came up with the theory in the first place, then youd have a real knowledge of the methodologies of science and engineering, of theory creation and testing, that could be applied and would enable you to think in a more scientific manner.
However the line youll get in UCC, is "there's the formula", 2 or 3 lines of derivation that probably arent explained or required, learn the formula off, plug in a few values, and get good marks in your exam - who cares about the whole thought process and culture off science. Get a few past papers, learn what questions come up. practice doing permutations of these questions around 10 times, plug in more values, and progress to year 2 to repeat the process - amazing! Yah, UCC is churning out the einsteins and faradays!

Turbulent Bill

Neodymium wrote: »

I guess like almost everything else you'll get back from your degree what you put in to it.

That's the most important thing to remember. You'll notice that most of the responses above come from people doing postgrads abroad, so it's no stretch to assume they're bright, interested and ambitious. There will have been plenty of people in their degree classes who attended the same lectures, did the same labs etc. but didn't have the drive or commitment to make the most of it. University courses are very unstructured compared to schools, so your progress is much more down to you than your lecturers. From reading your posts you seem to have the right attitude, best of luck.

I've no experience of UCC but I'd actually advocate the 'broad but shallow' subject approach, at least for part of the course. Real engineering problems rarely fit neatly into a particular subject area; you need to understand the context before focussing on a solution. IMHO a degree should give the broad background, some specific knowledge and the skillset to learn whatever you need in the future.

Carlow52

Neodymium wrote: »

Thanks again to everyone. I didn't mean to seem so critical of Irish universities, its just after reading posts like this one about UCC electrical engineering I became a bit worried.

I take grave exception to un-referenced crap like what was included in the body of you last post.

Such anonymous garbage belongs in the bin.

dan_d

Thing is OP, you're always going to find people who think that the course is not good enough, in every subject.

It depends on the individual.You get out of it what you put into it. I think some people (like the body of that last post) get annoyed by the theory because they probably should be an electrician...they went in expecting to be dealing with wires and cables all day long and instead found themselves learning the theory behind it all, which didn't suit them. If you want to go into engineering, you have to learn to crawl before you can walk - therefore you need to know the theory first. We had a Spanish lecturer for 2 years in college in quite a tricky subject - theory of structures - and he simply taught us as per the Spanish content of the course. It was very theoretical and difficult enough, but it made sense by the end and we all survived (the only thing we weren't too impressed by was the fact that he put 5 questions on the exam and you had to answer all 5 - "because that's how it's done in Spain"!!)

I think we hold up well enough.....and I know now that UCD are doing 5 year courses, similar to the continent (except in chemical engineering, which is still 4 years), so it's balancing out.

One piece of advice I got along the line somewhere which I thought was quite good was along the lines of .... a really good engineer has slightly less knowledge about a lot of things, rather than a lot of knowledge about a few things. I think "good" meant someone who had varied experience, was useful (as an engineer!) and was interested in learning, rather than someone who confined themselves wholly to one or two subjects. Though these people are also necessary. Anyway, I thought it was rather good advice!

z0oT

I did my degree in UCC, and I'm currently completing a Masters course in Edinburgh. I find my knowledge level is definitely on par if not greater than most other students on the course. Whilst it's true that there were modules here and there during the degree that could have been done better, I still believe I could rub shoulders with pretty much all other graduates of a similiar degree here in the UK, with the possible exception of those who have done the 5 year MEng courses, having a bit of an edge when it comes to the final year project.

It's also worth mentioning that internationally our Universities do quite well, with UCC, UCD and Trinity in the top 200. If there's any part of our Education chain that's suspect it would be the 2nd level education system I think.

flash1080

I think the quality of Irish engineering graduates is shíte tbh. Having said that, they are comparable to shíte graduates the world over. It doesn't really matter though because most engineering jobs are just paperwork that any monkey could do. There are a few good graduates, but they're the exception rather than the rule. There are more incompetent lecturers than good ones, some incompetent ones do manage to bullshít so much that they fool people into thinking they're good, but as the saying goes, "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.". Strangely enough as well, there are guys with 2.1s and 2.2s that I would rate as better engineers than some people with 1.1s (or 2.1s in the case of 2.2s).

spideog7

In my experience of both US and European students, most of them could recite the book fairly well, understood all of the concepts and the math quite thoroughly, they new the names for all of the equations and the names of all the greek letters (might have to look up some of the more obscure ones myself ) and what they stood for. Now I could do all that stuff no bother but only after having a quick look over it, not off the top of my head, I never had much meas in that because when it came down to actually doing the work they were no more competent than any Irish graduate.

I think they just put a bit more emphasis on the actual education process whereas more Irish students see the education really as a means to an end.

From that perspective I feel that the exams in foreign Universities might be more difficult (but I don't know because I've never done them or seen them). For my exams if you could do the past few years exams you could do your one, I get the impression over here that they expect you to know the book.

hevsuit

Just thought I'd throw my two cents to the OP if this thread is still alive:P

This Wednesday I'm going to finish my last exam in 1st year E&E Eng in UCC. I found the 1st year to be awesome. The lecturers in the department I found were really, really interested in how all the students were doing, and were always encouraging us to experiment in the lab and ask them for help if we needed it. That long quote you posted from another thread is completely unjustified, but again thats just my opinion.

UnionOfV

Being in the same situation as Hevsuit, I agree with entirely with Turbulent Bill in that the courses give a broad education which should broaden our opportunities later on. It's my opinion that no engineering course can give students the knowledge necessary for their future work, so it makes sense to give students a basic foundation in as many areas as possible and allow them to specialize as they see fit. Obviously you're better off listening to people who have been in the workforce for a few years, but I can say that you'd be pleasantly surprised where they end up.

Redisle

OP if your considering doing Engineering in UCC it might be worth pointing out that they are completely restructuring possibly all of the the Engineering courses for next year. I don't know the details but I know first year Eng is going to become far more general with only one or two course specific modules and the rest common to all of 1st Eng. Might be worth contacting the respective departments to find out more.

Other than that I just finished 2nd year E&E in UCC and I am happy enough with it. It has it's ups and downs such as the presence of two mech eng modules this year which didn't exactly feel relevant but certainly there was some interesting project work and what not.

It is an unfortunate fact however that many people in the degree may not have much of an interest in what they are studying and are just in it because of low entrance points or a vauge notion of large sums of money or whatever reason. I think the same could probably be said for many degrees but basically if you have an interest and are prepared to do some work theres no reason you can't get a good Quality degree out of it at the end of the day.

Neodymium

Thanks.
I was thinking of doing electical/electronic engineering not sure where yet.
One quick question, do you do much programming if so what language(s) and is there much emphasis on programming. I have always turned to computer engineering in UL because I love programming along with electronics and was just wondering if there is much programming in UCC electronic engineering course.

UnionOfV

Neodymium wrote: »

Thanks.
I was thinking of doing electical/electronic engineering not sure where yet.
One quick question, do you do much programming if so what language(s) and is there much emphasis on programming. I have always turned to computer engineering in UL because I love programming along with electronics and was just wondering if there is much programming in UCC electronic engineering course.

I have to say, when I was shopping for colleges UCC seemed to have the better Elec Eng facilities. Take a look and see for yourself.

Programming in electronics is mostly done on microcontrollers, in which case it's plain old C or assembly (Java has been ported to some microcontrollers but I've been told to stay well away from it). FPGA's and the like are used in specialist applications such as telecoms and aeronautics, and use their own particular languages. If I was to learn anything it would be C; learn C and the basics of assembly and you have the bulk of two modules done by the time you enter college! :pac:

Redisle

We did a fairly basic module in C in first year and then used C in 2nd year to create an interface program for a telecommunications project based on an FPGA board. In reality most of what you end up learning in C you will teach yourself though. In this case we had to design a CRC (Cyclic-Redundancy-Check) decoder on FPGA hardware and we were provided with a C library to communicate with the board. We didnt do any assembly apart from a tiny mention of it in a computers related module in first year.

Like I said though the course is being restructed so Im not sure what it will be like next year.

The facilities in UCC are quite good and the main computer lab in the Elec building got brand new machines this year so nice 20" Widescreens. The other lab (IT Lab as its called) also has computers and also all the electronics gear. Have nice amounts of lab equipment, Bench Supplys, Digital Scopes etc which is great if you want to work on your own projects.

I was actually going to do that course in UL myself as I couldnt really tear myself between the software and electronics sides of things and it seemed like a nice compromise but I went to UCC since I already live nearby and I don't regret it tbh. Im happy enough with the course and the department overall. From what I read the course in UL is quite a good one too with small classes. If your coming from far away in either case probably best to research both thoroughly. No idea what the UL facilities are like, probably get better information regarding that in the UL forum.

Knifey Spoony

Might as well chirp in here with my two cents on the UCC elec eng course since I've just finished third year and I'm on work experience now. Tbh, what you put into this course you get out. It is a very broad course, which is an advantage I think. It is not gonna teach you all you need to be an engineer, which is something that I'm seeing now on placement. What it does give you are the basics and you are encouraged to explore more advanced areas yourself. The lecturers are very approachable and being in relativley small classes is a big advantage of the course. The course might be changing next year as Redisel said, but I imagine that all that I've said about will still apply to the new style of the course.

Knifey Spoony

Knifey Spoony wrote: »

Might as well chirp in here with my two cents on the UCC elec eng course since I've just finished third year and I'm on work experience now.

When I was on work experience I shared a portocabin with a student from UCC elec eng, apparently lock out tag out hadn't been covered in the course. I hope that's after changing.

Knifey Spoony

RoverJames wrote: »

When I was on work experience I shared a portocabin with a student from UCC elec eng, apparently lock out tag out hadn't been covered in the course. I hope that's after changing.

Well we haven't covered it so far, but a quick wiki search would lead me to believe that the teaching of it might be left until you are actually on the job, or it might even be covered in fourth year.

In fairness I reckon any elec eng course or similar should cover that well before any folks from the course go near an indistrial environment

May as well chime in. I did Electronic and Computer Eng in NUIG and like it so much I stuck around to do a postgrad.

If you're interested in programming, then ECE is a pretty good bet. As previous posters mentioned, you do some C and assembly, also here, you do some more high level Java and C++ as well as sharing a few choice courses with Computer Science and getting Distributed Systems, Graphics and Image Processing etc along with your Analogue Systems, Semiconductors and all that stuff.

As far as Engineering goes, at the moment NUIG is looking pretty good. The new Eng building is finished and next years first years will be the first to use it, I've been in the place and it's class to be honest. Like UL, there's a placement program called PEP in 3rd year.

Probably one of the best things I found about the course was the atmosphere around it, technicians are possibly the most helpful people in the world and the lecturers are totally approachable.

The fact that it's in Galway too doesn't hurt

MiamTea

Hey, could anyone tell me, do Irish engineers and Irish degrees have a good reputation abroad? What sort of prospects would be out there for Irish engineering graduates? And one other thing, is it very expensive to do a masters degree abroad, I'd love to do that but I'd have no idea how to go about it...!
Thanks anyone who reads this and replies !

gb153

I attended an information evening run by Fletcher (a larger New Zealand civil engineering company) a few weeks ago. They were over to recruit Irish engineers as their economy is on the up and the earthquake in Christchurch has left a huge shortfall of engineers.

They seemed to a have a very positive opinion of Irish engineers. They had 30 to 40 Irish engineers with them at the time and they particularly liked the Irish work ethic. Overall (in my experience) I think Irish engineers have a good reputation abroad.

Some posters have referred to the quality of teaching in Irish universities. With regard to coming out of the degree without key skills for a particular job this is not really the point of your degree. There are so many different areas you can work in after a degree it is impossible to obtain all the necessary skills for every possibility. Take civil engineering for example. You can end up specialising in structural, roads, bridges, geotechnical, coastal, commercial/residential building, water/wastewater etc. You may not have all the skills to jump straight into any of these areas but your degree will have developed your problem solving skills in general and the ability to apply this to any area in time. You also have the option to go down the research route e.g. Masters, PhD, postdoc + possibly lecturing and the foundation skills required for this are also built into the degree course. You could argue that this or that skill should definitely be taught on the course but then you would have to sacrifice some other module.

I'd say to just be confident that you can handle whatever comes your way regardless of what specialist area you get into. No degree in any area can give you all the tools needed for the job - its why experience is so important.