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What is mechanical engineering?
The field of mechanical engineering is broad and encompasses the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. Essential to industry and innovation, the subject combines mathematical principles with applied physics and material science to design and maintain all kinds of mechanical systems. The role of a mechanical engineer is to design, test, analyse, build and repair the complex machinery which supports so many of our industries and manufacturing enterprises.
Read more about studying mechanical engineering at uni.
Reasons to study mechanical engineering
1. The skills you’ll learn
Studying a mechanical engineering degree will introduce you to lots of subject-specific skills. These often revolve around mathematics, computer programming, and fabrication, and can include technical drawing, systems analysis, computer aided design, structural analysis, knowledge of physics and maths, coding, finite element analysis, and project management.
Additionally, there are many translatable skills which will certainly benefit your studies and act as great preparation for professional life. These include time-management, teamwork, communication, problem solving skills, and creativity.
2. The career you could have
Mechanical engineering is an extremely broad field, when you consider that everything with moving parts, or which applies a force to anything can be categorised as a job for a mechanical engineer. Seriously, from the tiniest micro-robot, to every kind of vehicle, up to the mega-systems which entire cities depend on, there are teams of mechanical engineers working on creative solutions to make new ideas a reality and keep existing systems running smoothly.
Some popular career areas which suit a mechanical engineering degree are, civil engineering, CAD work, aerospace, nuclear, automotive, control and instrumentation, autonomous systems and many more.
Use our Career Matcher to find your ideal future job.
3. All the topics that get covered
All mechanical engineering degrees include a set of core topics, which are essential to understanding the profession. These form a strong foundation of knowledge from which you can further specialise into areas of interest when it comes to your second, third and perhaps fourth year. They frequently include thermodynamics, statistics, properties of gases and fluids, mathematics, fluid dynamics, materials science, and computer aided design.
4. You can study all over the UK
You’ll find mechanical engineering degree courses in most places with a modest selection of STEM courses. The three top ranked mechanical engineering courses in the UK according to Complete University Guide are at:
The top three universities based on student satisfaction are:
Check out the full mechanical engineering league table from Complete University Guide.
5. It’s something you enjoy!
If you like tinkering with models and machinery and think that you’d enjoy taking it to the next level, then mechanical engineering might be a good choice for you. Out of all the STEM courses, it’s one which has a high degree of creativity and problem solving embedded into it and is a subject where you really get to test the theoretical principles which you have studied.
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