Possible Job offer at end of year in industry vs returning to complete MEng as originally planned 2

[miketurbo]

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.

 

[steellion]

If you're that close to an MEng, do it. It's much harder to go back and do it later. Your company should be willing to wait a few months for you to complete your advanced degree. Discuss it with them. If they give you a take-it-or-leave-it proposition in terms of your employment, in my mind, that says a lot about the company. I wouldn't want to work for a company that would force me to forego a degree that I was less than 6 months from earning to work for them.

 

[TomDOT]

Yes, if your MEng will be complete by September - get it done, ask the company nicely if they can delay your start date until then.

 

[miketurbo]

Hi Steellion,

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.

 

[weldstan]

Advise completeing your MEng. Inform your potential employer of your intent and ask if you can be considered for part time employment, followed by full time employment after graduating.

 

[KENAT]

miketurbo - many responders will be US based and not familiar with the difference in the UK education system so be prepared for some misunderstandings.

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.

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[IRstuff]

Ultimately, it's your decision to make, and yours alone, and, hopefully, you're not going to be taking the advice of some anonymous stranger on the web.

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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[GregLocock]

Do the sponsored MEng. It is a fantastic opportunity that very few people get. Even if the sponsoring company doesn't offer you a job in the end you will have had the benefit of the industrial contact during the MEng, which will make you a much more credible interviewee than the typical postgraduate perpetual student. I can only imagine they would not hold a position for you if some organisational calamity occurs, in which case no ones job is safe anyway.

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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[CELinOttawa]

Three year BEng? Hmm... Seems short. Regardless, the MEng is what I would do in your situation.

 

[ScottyUK]

Agree with Greg's post above, he just beat me to it. Getting your chartership is the real goal if you're UK based. That opens doors which neither B. Eng or M. Eng will open. The M.Eng is a simpler route, and quicker.

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.

 

[CELinOttawa]

The standard for a B.Eng. in Canada is four years full time, which often becomes five or six years if a student fails even one course. Even with that there is discussion of making a Master's mandatory for licensure as a P.Eng. Two years is normally a Technician's diploma, sometimes a Technologist (though these are typically three year full time). I've tutored at the college level - The materials are the same, just much less in depth.

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.

 

[CELinOttawa]

Oh, and before someone stomps all over me for being a Uni snob, know this: If I had my choice, all graduates would require four years under a senior Draftsman before being able to get licensed.

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.

 

[ScottyUK]

I guess it comes down to whether the skill set is worthwhile to the employers or not. A four-year course with 50% filler material has less technical content than a three-year course with 10% filler material. You can make your own mind up what constitutes 'filler'. My own course had very little, because the timetable was jammed full of technical material. We had one valueless hour per week of 'management' in year two, which I typically spent in the library doing 'proper work', and that was about it.

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.

 

[CELinOttawa]

Agreed, and you can add Czech engineers to that list. I've had Russian staff and you're bang on... The education is math and science focussed in the extreme and competition based with set cull rates. I had a hard time imagining the described program as much less than torture. Termed "Specialists" rather than Engineers (which was seen as inaccurate and capatilist), the Soviet degree was six years and I suppose meant your regular Russian engineer had an education beyond the western Master's level and below PhD. I have no clue what their programme would be like now. One of the Russian's I've had pointed out that the system was a product of tyheir unique economy - so bad with equipment so scarce that they learnt and perfected the theory behind some things even when a practical demonstration would have been better... Demonstrations use resources, of course.

 

[KENAT]

CELinOttawa the OP is in the UK, the education system in the UK is different than in the US & apparently Canada.

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.

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[CELinOttawa]

Interesting... I did look, and did not find, but you're entirely correct: This is off topic for this thread.

My apologies to all, most particularly the OP.

Re the OP: Any chance a final decision has been reached?

 

[miketurbo]

Hello,

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.

 

[Longinthetooth]

I was not aware that UK registration requirments were moving to a Master's level as a minimum. When I graaduated in 1970 (after a 4 year gruelling course), a batchelors Hons degree was the requirement (plus the appropriate experience).

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?

 

[ScottyUK]

There are so many interacting factors at work!

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.

 

[IRstuff]

That seems to be different from the US. While the costs are exorbitant, the education still seems pretty reasonable, so long as you pick a decent major. Admittedly, there is some of the cash flow aspect, since the UCs in California are heavily recruiting foreign and out of state students because they have pay close to double the in-state rate.

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