Bachelor of Science in Product Design and Technology (LM076)

Togepi

Is anyone doing this course? If yes, could you please tell me what it's like?

Weeshie

Try posting on the UL facebook page if you get no joy here....
www.facebook.com/universityoflimerick

Togepi

Weeshie wrote: »

Try posting on the UL facebook page if you get no joy here....
www.facebook.com/universityoflimerick

Thanks, yeah I might try that if I don't get any more info here.

garv123

Im doing wood science but alot of the modules are shared with us and construction management like materials and tech maths, engineering science, manufacturing tech

In the third semester they do tech maths 1, We did it in first year, but then ye jump straight into tech maths 4 for the 4th semester which they are are all giving out about because they didnt do half the stuff. (neither did we)

liamo1991

Togepi wrote: »

Is anyone doing this course? If yes, could you please tell me what it's like?

I am doing the course third year currently on work co op (student placement) I find the course very interesting. We do a variety of modules, sketching to photoshop to engineering etc. A lot of continuous assessment on usually four week projects which is good not stuck in books.
Hours can be long sometimes some late nights if required but the studio is usually good crack. All the same most of the time good in ways bad in others (causes the
later hours to be put in to finish projects )
if you need to know anything more just drop a reply here with your questions

Togepi

garv123 wrote: »

Im doing wood science but alot of the modules are shared with us and construction management like materials and tech maths, engineering science, manufacturing tech

In the third semester they do tech maths 1, We did it in first year, but then ye jump straight into tech maths 4 for the 4th semester which they are are all giving out about because they didnt do half the stuff. (neither did we)

Thanks for the reply. How are people coping with Tech Maths 4 then? And what level of Maths would you need to be okay with the Maths on the course?

liamo1991 wrote: »

I am doing the course third year currently on work co op (student placement) I find the course very interesting. We do a variety of modules, sketching to photoshop to engineering etc. A lot of continuous assessment on usually four week projects which is good not stuck in books.
Hours can be long sometimes some late nights if required but the studio is usually good crack. All the same most of the time good in ways bad in others (causes the
later hours to be put in to finish projects )
if you need to know anything more just drop a reply here with your questions

What are the hours like each week? And are there many lectures or labs at all? Also what sort of work do you have to do other than projects (ie. would you ever have to do any essays/presentations etc)?

Finally, how many people do the course and what's the male to female ratio like?

garv123

Togepi wrote: »

Thanks for the reply. How are people coping with Tech Maths 4 then? And what level of Maths would you need to be okay with the Maths on the course?

1&2 werent bad, I did pass maths and got B1 and managed to pass them.
Tech maths 4 at the moment is probability which is making no sense to any of us at the moment and after week 7 its statistics. The lectures accent aint helping.

Togepi

garv123 wrote: »

1&2 werent bad, I did pass maths and got B1 and managed to pass them.
Tech maths 4 at the moment is probability which is making no sense to any of us at the moment and after week 7 its statistics. The lectures accent aint helping.

What exactly is Tech Maths? Is it anything like any of the Maths you do for the Leaving?

garv123

Togepi wrote: »

What exactly is Tech Maths? Is it anything like any of the Maths you do for the Leaving?

It a lot of the stuff you cover in the leaving but taken to abit of a higher level.
Tech maths one is alot like Higher lc maths apparently.

savagecabbages

garv123 wrote: »

It a lot of the stuff you cover in the leaving but taken to abit of a higher level.
Tech maths one is alot like Higher lc maths apparently.

Tech(nology) maths is a step down from Engineering maths and is usually found in courses with ordinary level maths in the entry requirements. Usually these courses award a Bachelor of Science.

Engineering maths is for the courses awarding Bachelors of Engineering, and you'd need honors maths (C3) to get into these courses.

I'd consider tech maths to be a go-between for ordinary level and higher level leaving cert maths, with engineering maths being a big step up.

Dont worry about skipping modules, they dont run concurrently...

EDIT: if all else fails, the exam papers almost always prove to be very predictable!

savagecabbages

Togepi wrote: »

Is anyone doing this course? If yes, could you please tell me what it's like?

I did the course a few years ago, though its changed a lot since...


Personally I enjoyed the course, but also found it quite hard. Hard in terms of workload, not in terms of difficult subject matter. As other posters have mentioned, its more of a continuous assessment type course than one with big exams after each semester. i.e. you might have 70% of the module done during the semester with only a 30% exam at the end. The workload for us was very intense with +-40 hours timetabled per semester, with loads more each evening... You'll get to do loads of cool projects, LOTS of drawing & model making, and do some interesting technology modules. We also had to do loads of rubbish filler modules which were irrelevant to the course, thought us nothing, and were of no practical use down the line. We also spent a lot of time trying to catch up on skills we needed for 3rd & 4th year but hadn't been taught in 1st or 2nd year...

Apparently the course is now much more structured with some of the useless modules removed, and the workload has eased off a good bit because of this. The lecturing staff has also changed for the better since I was there, and there are more lecturers. You could say we were the guinea pigs as the course was new at the time!

As for job prospects, of the 22 or so of us who finished the course, 3 or 4 might actually be working in design, all the rest of us went back to study something else, or are working jobs unrelated to what we studied.

Togepi

garv123 wrote: »

It a lot of the stuff you cover in the leaving but taken to abit of a higher level.
Tech maths one is alot like Higher lc maths apparently.

savagecabbages wrote: »

Tech(nology) maths is a step down from Engineering maths and is usually found in courses with ordinary level maths in the entry requirements. Usually these courses award a Bachelor of Science.

...

I'd consider tech maths to be a go-between for ordinary level and higher level leaving cert maths, with engineering maths being a big step up.

...

EDIT: if all else fails, the exam papers almost always prove to be very predictable!

What kind of Maths is done in it though? Like is any of it similar to algebra/differentiation/complex numbers/probability, etc?

savagecabbages wrote: »

Apparently the course is now much more structured with some of the useless modules removed, and the workload has eased off a good bit because of this. The lecturing staff has also changed for the better since I was there, and there are more lecturers. You could say we were the guinea pigs as the course was new at the time!

As for job prospects, of the 22 or so of us who finished the course, 3 or 4 might actually be working in design, all the rest of us went back to study something else, or are working jobs unrelated to what we studied.

Can I ask what year you graduated?

savagecabbages

Togepi wrote: »

What kind of Maths is done in it though? Like is any of it similar to algebra/differentiation/complex numbers/probability, etc?



Can I ask what year you graduated?

God really scratching the memory banks here (2004 since I did it), but as far as I can remember, tech maths 1 was a general maths module introducing you to several topics already covered in the leaving cert, and brushing on a few new ones..
as garv123 says, tech maths 4 is half probability half statistics. Made no sense to most of us but the exam was relatively easy:p

Are you worried about the maths content in the course? There are other design courses in the country with much less technology than this one, particularly Industrial Design in NCAD.

I also had a quick look at the actual modules in the course now, there are a good few different ones from when I did it, but of the ones we did which are still there and have maths in some form in them:
Electrotechnology is basically the circutry part of leaving cert physics,
Engineering Science 1 and Design Mechanics are like applied maths.
Some of the materials modules (which have different names now) may have some chemistry in them.
Overall I wouldn't be too worried about that side of the course if you can get a decent grade in ordinary level maths you'll be fine..

I graduated in 2008, we were only the second graduate class.

Togepi

savagecabbages wrote: »

God really scratching the memory banks here (2004 since I did it), but as far as I can remember, tech maths 1 was a general maths module introducing you to several topics already covered in the leaving cert, and brushing on a few new ones..
as garv123 says, tech maths 4 is half probability half statistics. Made no sense to most of us but the exam was relatively easy:p

Are you worried about the maths content in the course? There are other design courses in the country with much less technology than this one, particularly Industrial Design in NCAD.

I also had a quick look at the actual modules in the course now, there are a good few different ones from when I did it, but of the ones we did which are still there and have maths in some form in them:
Electrotechnology is basically the circutry part of leaving cert physics,
Engineering Science 1 and Design Mechanics are like applied maths.
Some of the materials modules (which have different names now) may have some chemistry in them.
Overall I wouldn't be too worried about that side of the course if you can get a decent grade in ordinary level maths you'll be fine..

I graduated in 2008, we were only the second graduate class.

Thanks for all that! No not too worried about the Maths part of the course, just making sure that you don't need to be good at higher level for it! I got a B1 in ordinary and I'm repeating and doing higher now. Should be able to get a D or maybe even a C, so from what you're saying I'll be grand!

I do Tech, Phys/Chem and Art, so they should all be fairly useful for the course. The project we do in Tech is exactly like some of the projects on the course from what I've seen, so I'll be well-prepared for that anyway!

Was the co-op in place for your year or did they bring that in later? (If you did have it and you remember any of the kinds of places people worked in, I'd love to hear where.)

savagecabbages

Yeah you have ideal subjects going into PDT. We had co-op alright that was there from the start. I worked doing machine design in shannon, basically designing assembly lines in 3D CAD. Was a pretty good co-op placement. The jobs the rest of the class got were very varied but all relevant to some degree, and mostly good experience. I'd say the smaller the company you do co-op for, the broader your experience will be.

A great new addition to the course which wasn-t there for us is erasmus where you study abroad for one semester, and many co-op jobs are now overseas.

All in all its a great course, very varied - which is its achillies heel at times because you have a mixture of several things eg. Design, mechanical eng, electrical eng, materials science and of course design. You'll be going up against people who have full degrees in one of these, usually for a job tailored for a single discipline...