Possible Job offer at end of year in industry vs returning to complete MEng as originally planned
Possible Job offer at end of year in industry vs returning to complete MEng as originally planned
(OP)
Hi,
So what I'm really looking for here is some advice with respect to the increased future career progression/job prospects that an MEng can offer vs. jumping on the career ladder now if I was given the opportunity.
Background: Currently completing a year in industry post 3rd year studies [ie. I could graduate with a BEng now] with the original intention to return to University and complete my MEng this September. I have previously contemplated taking a job if the opportunity arose due to the worry in this economic climate with getting a graduate job. The thought has now come even more to the foreground due to recent talks of MEng sponsorship and even more recently the prospect of a job if I was stay on at this job and stop at a BEng. For info, the company is a Fortune 500 company [UK Site], great career prospects etc
There are obviously two big sides to this decision mainly centring around going for a job now with high probability of getting it [good relationship with management, company knowledge etc] vs by not having the masters will this play a negative effect on future employability. I might add, completing the MEng was always my plan but it's hard to not think twice when a potential job offer is on the cards and the whole 'you should take opportunities' presented to you comments. It's a difficult decision which has the potential to create regrets whichever way I go.
I was hoping to hear a few peoples thoughts and comments which may prompt further considerations.
Thanks and sorry for the long post.
So what I'm really looking for here is some advice with respect to the increased future career progression/job prospects that an MEng can offer vs. jumping on the career ladder now if I was given the opportunity.
Background: Currently completing a year in industry post 3rd year studies [ie. I could graduate with a BEng now] with the original intention to return to University and complete my MEng this September. I have previously contemplated taking a job if the opportunity arose due to the worry in this economic climate with getting a graduate job. The thought has now come even more to the foreground due to recent talks of MEng sponsorship and even more recently the prospect of a job if I was stay on at this job and stop at a BEng. For info, the company is a Fortune 500 company [UK Site], great career prospects etc
There are obviously two big sides to this decision mainly centring around going for a job now with high probability of getting it [good relationship with management, company knowledge etc] vs by not having the masters will this play a negative effect on future employability. I might add, completing the MEng was always my plan but it's hard to not think twice when a potential job offer is on the cards and the whole 'you should take opportunities' presented to you comments. It's a difficult decision which has the potential to create regrets whichever way I go.
I was hoping to hear a few peoples thoughts and comments which may prompt further considerations.
Thanks and sorry for the long post.





RE: Possible Job offer at end of year in industry vs returning to complete MEng as originally planned
RE: Possible Job offer at end of year in industry vs returning to complete MEng as originally planned
RE: Possible Job offer at end of year in industry vs returning to complete MEng as originally planned
I think I am swaying more towards continuing as originally planned and completing my MEng. As my Father keeps saying, it may easily be something you regret in later life and an extra year studying will become negligible in my life long term.
I might not have described myself clearly in the OP, what I meant was I would be returning to complete my MEng in September and hence would be graduating July 2015. I don't have any issues with the company at all as they would already be willing to sponsor me through my MEng [which is as close to a future job offer that they can make]. I think it might be unrealistic to expect the company to guarantee a job on completion but again I do not have much experience on whether this kind of situation occurs or not. My manager has already made it clear that there is not pressure to take up the position as he is aware of my plan to do the MEng.
The company has a very active part time Msc programme at the local univeristy which would be the alternative if I were to take the job although my manager has highlighted that one question HR would pose would be to ask why I would give up the MEng to just do a part time MSc through work.
I think the more I write about this the more my mind is being made up about does getting the MEng done and dusted.
RE: Possible Job offer at end of year in industry vs returning to complete MEng as originally planned
RE: Possible Job offer at end of year in industry vs returning to complete MEng as originally planned
You don't mention what field of industry etc. which may impact how useful a MEng V BEng will be. If you eventually want to get chartered (kind of like PE for US folks) then I believe you may eventually need the Masters one way or another though it's a while since I looked at such things. Also my crystal ball is on the fritz which makes it difficult to be sure what will really happen in the course of your career.
Honestly it looks like both options are pretty good, sponsored for an MEng but without necessarily a job offer or Job offer with sponsored part time MSc. Based on the info available I'm not sure there's much to choose between the 2 options.
Will the course of study of the MSc be as good as for the MEng or vice versa? If through the employer the MSc may be more focused on what you'll actually need - or at least what the company thinks you will need. This of course can be good or bad, good if you get to make a career at your current employer (or at least the same field) potentially a little less good if eventually you want to break into a different field that the MEng would touch on.
As to HR's question the honest answer is probably 'a bird in the hand...' but that may not pass their psych test. You could say something about how to be a better engineer you feel you need bot education and experience and this is way to bet getting both simultaneously or some such.
What's the employment market like for graduates with your degree in the UK? What % of grads are walking into engineering jobs V being stuck working in some insurance office or similar?
Sorry, probably not much help but there you have it.
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: Possible Job offer at end of year in industry vs returning to complete MEng as originally planned
Clearly, there are things you can do to make the decision more rational:
> List out pros/cons and weight them with some scoring that corresponds to your current needs and desires
> Perform a worst-case analysis and look at consequences of various possible failures and weight by probability and severity, i.e., you take the job, but get laid off, or don't get to continue your education through the company, or you take the MEng route, but the company goes away or finds someone else, or something happens to you.
These are basic ways of approaching engineering design decisions, so, if nothing else, you've tested the waters on doing engineering tradeoff analyses.
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RE: Possible Job offer at end of year in industry vs returning to complete MEng as originally planned
Here's the IMechE's requirements, looks like that MEng is a good move
The UK Standard for Professional Engineering Competence (UK-SPEC) has standardised the academic requirements for CEng and IEng registration:
CEng:
Accredited BEng (Hons) degree plus appropriate Masters degree or
Accredited BEng (Hons) degree plus approved Further Learning to Masters level or
Accredited MEng
Cheers
Greg Locock
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RE: Possible Job offer at end of year in industry vs returning to complete MEng as originally planned
RE: Possible Job offer at end of year in industry vs returning to complete MEng as originally planned
CELinOttawa,
Three years full time, or four years including a placement year. A course at a reputable university will be pretty intense for those three years.
RE: Possible Job offer at end of year in industry vs returning to complete MEng as originally planned
My schedule for each of my years was packed, with hardly an hour off per day from 8am to 4pm. Homework was stated to be a standard "hour and a half for every hour of lecturing". Thirty hours of lectures a week was standard. We worked around the clock to make it, with 70% of candidates failing to complete the program.
If that sounds bad to you, know this: My father's generation went to University Monday to Saturday, with some labs scheduled for Saturday evening if more time was needed for lecturing on a subject. One in five graduated.
I'm not meaning to be difficult about it, but I really don't think three years is sufficient training for a Civil Engineer. I don't know enough about other types and so won't comment... But I think I have a better idea why so many foreign engineers have a hard time getting licensed in Canada.
RE: Possible Job offer at end of year in industry vs returning to complete MEng as originally planned
And I very much like the fact that you can still get your P.Eng. by challenge exams in Canada. You simply write the exams to prove that you have all the required knowledge and abilities to be a professional engineer... I don't care how you came upon those skills, just that you have them.
But there is no way a graduate of a three year full time program has the same skill set as what a graduate of a four year full time program does.
RE: Possible Job offer at end of year in industry vs returning to complete MEng as originally planned
I've worked with engineers from pretty much every industrialised nation and the best-educated engineers I have worked with have come from Poland and Russia. I know virtually nothing about their education systems, but I suspect it is 'old school' with very heavy theoretical and mathematical focus and virtually no 'filler'. I have met only a few Western-educated engineers with similar levels of ability in mathematics and physics, and they learned their craft many years ago 'when the exams were difficult'. Ha-ha.
RE: Possible Job offer at end of year in industry vs returning to complete MEng as originally planned
RE: Possible Job offer at end of year in industry vs returning to complete MEng as originally planned
In the UK a BEng is generally achieved in 3 years.
An MEng is generally achieved in 4 years (that's 4 years from 'high school' - just one extra year than for BEng).
The reasons for the compressed time frame can be (& has been) debated elsewhere if you insist but is off topic for this thread.
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: Possible Job offer at end of year in industry vs returning to complete MEng as originally planned
My apologies to all, most particularly the OP.
Re the OP: Any chance a final decision has been reached?
RE: Possible Job offer at end of year in industry vs returning to complete MEng as originally planned
Sorry for the lack of response over the weekend. Thanks for everyone's input, particularly GregLocock and ScottyUK for your posts which have further highlighted the importance of these considerations.
After a lot of thought over the weekend I have come to the decision that I will continue with my MEng in September. I believe that this will drastically improve my employability not only with the company discussed but with alternative and future employers. From hearing others peoples experiences, completing the MEng full time over a year seems a lot more of an attractive options to me personally rather than completing it part time while in full time work - that's just my opinion. The other influencing factor of course has been the ability to progress towards chartership in a much more straightforward fashion.
Hopefully, on completion of my MEng the company will be hiring as strongly as they have been this year - the industry appears to be performing well so this shouldn't be an issue, although you can never be sure.
Apologies for the confusion surrounding the location of my university, I did mention that I was working at a UK site but overlooked that this may not have been interpreted correctly.
Thanks again for your comments.
RE: Possible Job offer at end of year in industry vs returning to complete MEng as originally planned
The two best chemical engineers I worked for had little academic training. Both now long dead, they grew up around the second world war, and both had an amazing uderstanding of units ops and how they dovetailed into an industrial setting.
They could pull all sorts of experience based rules of thumb etc. out of a hat, and were right every time. Not a computer in sight, just the back of an old envelope or fag packet.
I dont know if the move to higher academic requirements is a good thing, or if it just represents the dumbing down of courses. Can anyone explain the thinking please?
RE: Possible Job offer at end of year in industry vs returning to complete MEng as originally planned
The universities have become much more driven by numbers in the last couple of decades, with increased student roll equating to more cash and the then-government's barking mad idea that everyone should go to university. Somewhere universities changed from being machines for educating people to machines for making money.
No one wants to attend a poor university, so the university pass rates go up to ensure the place remains attractive to new prospects. Universities dropped many of the 'old' subjects like, for example, electrical machines because they are resource-intensive and relatively unpopular because they are perceived as difficult. By eliminating laboratories and workshops they can squeeze another few hundred kids in for class-based learning while reducing the overheads. The kids coming out of the far end of this system have better grades and know far less than their forebears.
Perhaps the professional bodies initially tried to maintain some credibility with industry, so they raised the academic requirements to a Master's degree to compensate for the weakening quality of a Bachelor's degree. But the numbers game is also being played by the professional bodies, so they are handing out charterships - with the attendant higher fees that they attract - to people who would have had little or no chance 20 years ago. In the case of the former IEE - the dreadful IET - they couldn't agree to a merger among equals with their counterparts in the Civil, Mechanical and Chemical disciplines, so they engineered a merger with the technicians' professional body, doing neither group any favours but increasing the membership revenue and reducing their overheads. They also broke the link between membership - MIEE - and chartership - C.Eng - which had existed for many, many years. I suspect this too was a revenue-generating exercise.
I am not proud of the current professional registration system in the UK. The IET is a convenient means of registration with the Engineering Council, but nothing more. Its predecessor was something that gave me a little bit of pride through being a member, but no longer.
RE: Possible Job offer at end of year in industry vs returning to complete MEng as originally planned
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RE: Possible Job offer at end of year in industry vs returning to complete MEng as originally planned
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: Possible Job offer at end of year in industry vs returning to complete MEng as originally planned
From my experience [University of Leeds - Russell group UK] I don't feel the course has been dumbed down at all. We do in fact have a lot of practical lab time planned into our timetables including wind tunnels, engine beds, mechatronics etc the only difference I can see is the emphasis on computer labs which now probably outweighs other types of labs.
I kind help but find it patronising to consistently hear of people having a knock at the current generation of young adults trying to make an education for themselves and how it was so much worse 'back in the day'
RE: Possible Job offer at end of year in industry vs returning to complete MEng as originally planned
I wasn't intending to have a go at today's graduates, it was intended as criticism of the system. The young people are a product of the system, and the problem lies with the system. Many of the guys who are retiring, or have retired recently, have forgotten more than I know about electrical machines. They were educated by a better system than I was, and they benefitted from that. I see recent grads - from some top-flight universities - who know less than I did when I graduated from a less prestigious university. Every year the standard drops a little further. It wasn't 'worse' back in the day, it was better. Just harder too.
Without demeaning your course or your achievement in finishing it in any way, I don't think you've been graduated long enough to realise just how much stuff you will never fully understand. It tends to hit you mid-career, once you've been through a few employers and have engaged with a few of the real experts, just how much you don't know.
RE: Possible Job offer at end of year in industry vs returning to complete MEng as originally planned
I dont critisise today's grads either. Like most other people, I got a good gounding in my field, but that's all it was, a grounding. You carry on learning throughout your career. I am still learning to this day, although I am a lot nearer the end of my career than the beginning.
It is just my personal opinion, but I dont see an extra year spent doing a masters contributes anything towards your development as a practicing (i.e. non academic) engineer. This opinion obviously does not hold sway in the corridors of power. So be it.
One area in which I have a great deal of sympathy with todays grads is that they have to amass considerable debt to get their education, whereas I got mine virtualy free. I think the fees nowadays are criminal.
Mike C
RE: Possible Job offer at end of year in industry vs returning to complete MEng as originally planned
Longinthetooth - the way in which the masters contributes to IMechE accreditation is through the academic side; hence why I mentioned that if a Masters was not persuade you can still become accredited but then on onus falls on you to demonstrate appropriate levels of postgraduate education & learning. As I previously mentioned, I personally would prefer to do this within a postgraduate establishment.
I missed out on the recent increase to £9000/year fees and while this is a lot of money It wouldn't have dissuade me from following the same path as I have done - perhaps it will help to reduce the ridiculously high levels of attendance at universities though.
RE: Possible Job offer at end of year in industry vs returning to complete MEng as originally planned
One thing you will discover is that the workplace has changed a lot since the old days of nationalised industry. There are few electrical engineers (as distinct from electronic engineers) today who will get a chance to specialise to the extent that their forebears did prior to the 1980s. The reason why many of today's experts are perceived as 'experts' is that they specialised in a fairly narrow field during much of their career. The way companies are structured today means that they prefer to employ a relatively small number of engineers who know a reasonable amount about a wide range of subjects and who can handle the majority of problems, rather than having a few more staff with individual specialisms who between them can deal with pretty much anything. When they need an expert they hire them in as consultants. This business model works until the experts are no longer available because they retire, and grow old, and die. That point is being reached around about now, but big business hasn't quite woken up to this unwelcome news. The sad fact is that British industry has allowed a vast amount of knowledge to seep away in the last thirty years without it being passed on to the next generation, and it is now virtually impossible to repair the situation because of the passage of time means that the skills and knowledge are no longer present in the labour market.
On a more positive note engineering is a great field to work in, and wages are rising as companies steal each other's staff to fill the gaps opening up due to retirement. Today's graduates have far better employment prospects than those of 20 years ago because of the skills shortage, and that is nice to see.
RE: Possible Job offer at end of year in industry vs returning to complete MEng as originally planned
You are right about the shortage. I work in a small office in the north of England. We are part of a multinational engineering contractor. Much of our work is sourced localy and we could take on a lot more if we could get the people to do it. Lots of good new grads around, but we can only train up a small number at ony one time. The experienced people just are not there.
Good job security for me, but a sad comment on the industry, just as you say.
Mike C
RE: Possible Job offer at end of year in industry vs returning to complete MEng as originally planned
RE: Possible Job offer at end of year in industry vs returning to complete MEng as originally planned
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: Possible Job offer at end of year in industry vs returning to complete MEng as originally planned
RE: Possible Job offer at end of year in industry vs returning to complete MEng as originally planned
Of course the weather is better down there, which is something.
I have to visit our head office in london, now and again. Recently they rejigged it to get more people in (from another building which they closed). It's like working in a call centre. Long rows of desks with no room sand no privacy at all.
I'll never complain obout our office here again. (Of course, all the managers kept their individual offices!)
Mike C