UK engineering programs circa 1980

[robert_huff]

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Comments

[clanwilliam]

I actually applied for aeronautical engineering in the late 1980s. There was nowhere in the Republic of Ireland that offered it at the time. Limerick was about to start a module in it in the early 1990s, but I think on the island of Ireland only Queens offered it, in conjunction with Shorts, the local aerospace firm. Queens is under the UK system

[clanwilliam]

Also, as others have pointed out, it was UCCA. Poly applications were PCAS, which is where my memory got confused.

[robert_huff]

1) I'm American; "resume" is the generic, as opposed to c.v. or /cursus honorum/.

2) Adam is British - born in St Albans.

3) At least for the moment, his father is a mid-level technical manager and his mother a nurse. They'll be willing to contribute £50 a month to insure he's not living in squalor. (During the school year, anyway. In the summer he can ruddy well find a job.)

[robert_huff]

So ... was acceptance entirely about grades, or did they look at things like school activities, community service, etc.?

[orange_fell]

You might want to add these details and questions to the post. Nobody can read them unless they click through to the comments and read to the end.

[robert_huff]

Done. (Point well taken.)

[clanwilliam]

I can't fully remember, and my situation was different since I was applying from overseas, so couldn't attend interviews, but I did have to write a personal statement, which the Irish system didn't require.

I think the unis could see where else you'd applied, hence the strategy of applying for two related courses at the same place.

Also, offers were very much dependent on the applicant.

[syntinen_laulu]

Has he got any siblings close to him in age? Because back then if your parents had more than one child at university, the grant was bumped up so that they only had to stump up for one child. (My parents cursed themselves for having spaced their output of three children just too much to benefit from this rule.)

[janewilliams20]

If he wants to be an aeronautical engineer, another thing for him to look at is sponsorship by one of the big engineering companies. This is what I did, a few years later, and growing up in Luton, not that far from St Albans. Look at British Aerospace (as it was then), and the site in Stevenage that designed and made missiles (they sponsored me), or the one in Hatfield that made aircraft. I got employment/apprenticeship for a year, then three years of college with a job over the long vac, and a bursary each term, then a job at the end