General Advice for people wanting to take Engineering at UoM

[huaxiadragon]

Now I know engineering is one of the possible choices among many for people just starting University or soon to start University, amongst others like Medicine and Commerce etc. I am here to give everyone a bit of an idea regarding what it’s like doing engineering.

A bit about me
I am doing Master of Engineering (Electrical) at University of Melbourne, penultimate year (graduating 2015).

I am in fact the student ambassador for Melbourne University this year, so you’ll be seeing me at open days etc and other events hosted by University of Melbourne.

Fun aspects of engineering
Yes, generally people think engineers make stuff, they are certainly very much correct. I’ve been doing engineering for 4 years and I made some seriously cool stuff, thermostat for temperature controller, I’m currently part of a team building sumo robot where we will fight with our robot in a competition in a few month and I’m going to make a game boy next semester. Many of my peers in final years of University engage in very interesting projects, multi-rotor helicopters, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (without guns and missiles unfortunately). With my current knowledge and some effort, I can build laser cutters (yes kind of like Plasma Cutters from Dead Space), rail guns and coil guns (very weak) among other cool stuff.

Yes Engineering is definitely very fun and rewarding, something worth getting into if you like building stuff and problem solving.

Job Prospect
Engineers are one of the top 10 paid jobs straight out of graduation, and there’s a very high average salary. In fact I know a few engineers who are making more than $100 grand a year.

The careers options are wide, engineers not only work in manufacturing, but moreover in design, maintenance, and funnily enough management consulting.

At the yearly careers fair held by engineers Australia, I’ve in fact talked to recruiters from Australian Secret Intelligence Organization, recruiting engineers for intelligence analysts due to their trained analytical mindset.

Further, if you really can’t find a job, you can always join the armed forces, people with engineering degrees can enroll in the officer program straight away and come out a 2nd lietenant.

But Be warned
Alright by now you are probably more than half convinced that you are going to be an engineer.

BUT! The fact is engineering is one of the degrees with the highest fail rate I know of, yes you may notice the clear-in ATAR may be low, and you satisfy the prerequisites. The first and 2nd year are alright, they are certainly very busy but not as bad as you would think, however they are quite dull as you had to learn the basic science and math subjects.

Beginning 3rd year, life really gets bad. You will start to notice the math gets retarded, difficulty is going straight up the roof, and by my knowledge approximately 40-50% of people in 3rd year failed at least 1 subject and had to repeat the next year, it progressively gets worse in 4th year.

Electrical, Mechanical, Mechatronics engineers have the worst, as the math just gets crazy, some of the subjects like Probability and Random Models are in fact 2 difficult math subjects combined into one. In contrast the civil engineers seem to enjoy a lower difficulty than the electrical, however be warned that engineering in general is very difficult.

In countries such as China, where their equivalent of ATAR clear-in for each course is proportional to difficulty unlike in Australia where ATAR clear-in is proportional to popularity. Engineering in China has one of the highest equivalent ATAR clear-ins, which reflects the difficulty.

However it’s in 3rd and 4th year people begin to design cool projects and gets to really learn what it’s like to be an engineer.

I think I will write this much for now, may always add more if I feel like.
Good luck to students wanting to be future engineers!

[Hannibal]

Thanks for taking the time to write this - very useful

[Inside Out]

Now I know engineering is one of the possible choices among many for people just starting University or soon to start University, amongst others like Medicine and Commerce etc. I am here to give everyone a bit of an idea regarding what it’s like doing engineering.

A bit about me
I am doing Master of Engineering (Electrical) at University of Melbourne, penultimate year (graduating 2015).

I am in fact the student ambassador for Melbourne University this year, so you’ll be seeing me at open days etc and other events hosted by University of Melbourne.

Fun aspects of engineering
Yes, generally people think engineers make stuff, they are certainly very much correct. I’ve been doing engineering for 4 years and I made some seriously cool stuff, thermostat for temperature controller, I’m currently part of a team building sumo robot where we will fight with our robot in a competition in a few month and I’m going to make a game boy next semester. Many of my peers in final years of University engage in very interesting projects, multi-rotor helicopters, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (without guns and missiles unfortunately). With my current knowledge and some effort, I can build laser cutters (yes kind of like Plasma Cutters from Dead Space), rail guns and coil guns (very weak) among other cool stuff.

Yes Engineering is definitely very fun and rewarding, something worth getting into if you like building stuff and problem solving.

Job Prospect
Engineers are one of the top 10 paid jobs straight out of graduation, and there’s a very high average salary. In fact I know a few engineers who are making more than $100 grand a year.

The careers options are wide, engineers not only work in manufacturing, but moreover in design, maintenance, and funnily enough management consulting.

At the yearly careers fair held by engineers Australia, I’ve in fact talked to recruiters from Australian Secret Intelligence Organization, recruiting engineers for intelligence analysts due to their trained analytical mindset.

Further, if you really can’t find a job, you can always join the armed forces, people with engineering degrees can enroll in the officer program straight away and come out a 2nd lietenant.

But Be warned
Alright by now you are probably more than half convinced that you are going to be an engineer.

BUT! The fact is engineering is one of the degrees with the highest fail rate I know of, yes you may notice the clear-in ATAR may be low, and you satisfy the prerequisites. The first and 2nd year are alright, they are certainly very busy but not as bad as you would think, however they are quite dull as you had to learn the basic science and math subjects.

Beginning 3rd year, life really gets bad. You will start to notice the math gets retarded, difficulty is going straight up the roof, and by my knowledge approximately 40-50% of people in 3rd year failed at least 1 subject and had to repeat the next year, it progressively gets worse in 4th year.

Electrical, Mechanical, Mechatronics engineers have the worst, as the math just gets crazy, some of the subjects like Probability and Random Models are in fact 2 difficult math subjects combined into one. In contrast the civil engineers seem to enjoy a lower difficulty than the electrical, however be warned that engineering in general is very difficult.

In countries such as China, where their equivalent of ATAR clear-in for each course is proportional to difficulty unlike in Australia where ATAR clear-in is proportional to popularity. Engineering in China has one of the highest equivalent ATAR clear-ins, which reflects the difficulty.

However it’s in 3rd and 4th year people begin to design cool projects and gets to really learn what it’s like to be an engineer.

I think I will write this much for now, may always add more if I feel like.
Good luck to students wanting to be future engineers!

you're doing what i plan to do question: do you have to do a lot of programming in electrical? (i;m assuming you do since you're making a gameboy).. do you have to be interested in gaming to be an electrical engineer (i have no interest in gaming)?
Also, would you say electrical is more maths or physics related.. anything related to linear algebra (hate it so much right now)?

If i  may ask, what was your GPA getting into the masters program? I'm scared now because i think second year is hard as fluk
Cheers!

edit: ALSO JUST WONDERING HOW MANY CHICKS IN YOUR COHORT?

[LOLs99]

Thanks for writing this up. I get a clearer idea now as I am currently in first year and the stuff we learnt doesn't look too bad except the stupid MATLAB. I would like to know your GPA for getting into master of electrical engineering. Hope you can continue to write more engineering stuff

[hobbitle]

You need 65% + average to get into the Masters programs.
Honestly I think that barrier is pretty stupidly low... But hey I think 50% is a stupid percentage for a pass so go figure.
MATLAB is fine you just have to actually do the assignments and exercises. People hate on programming because they don't take that first step and just start writing code. I'm not saying you're like that (poster above) but I've seen it so often over the past two years. You use MATLAB a lot in the Eng courses (well if you can't use it you don't become a very good asset in group projects).