Civil Engineering in DIT

GaryIrv93

i attended a brief half an hour talk on Engineering for college a few days ago at my school. Civil Engineering and Structural Engineering caught my attention. I've always admired bridges, buildings and the like. I was wondering if anyone here is doing any of these two courses and could give me an insight of what it's like? eg. are the maths very hard? are they very hectic courses with loads of assignments and exams? stuff like that? thanks

shanered

In second year now.
Well the truth be told it is a hard course.
55 people started in first year and there is now only about 15 of them left.
There is 20 in my course but about 5 of them are repeating second year.
I am giving it all I got and its pretty hard, maths physics and chemistry are the bread and butter in this course.
It quite the opposite of exciting doing this course.
Thats my opinion anyways!

GaryIrv93

shanered wrote: »

In second year now.
Well the truth be told it is a hard course.
55 people started in first year and there is now only about 15 of them left.
There is 20 in my course but about 5 of them are repeating second year.
I am giving it all I got and its pretty hard, maths physics and chemistry are the bread and butter in this course.
It quite the opposite of exciting doing this course.
Thats my opinion anyways!

Thanks, jeez those lads who gave the talk didn't mention chemistry lol. If there's that much maths involved then I probably shouldn't go near it, i don't do honours maths and don't even do physics. Can you do Engineering without honours maths i forgot to ask?

overshoot

iv seen the maths engineer argument on another thread and yea you can, one lad had done foundation maths and some eejit started going on how he wouldnt trust him even though he got a first. but there is going to be a lot of maths in it and if you arent in maths because you dont like it (removing possible teacher's influence) id say stay away.
there is also areas like architectural technology, its more than this but detailing of buildings, regulations are the bread and butter.

dontlookdown

I'm in final year now.. I can tell you there's loads of Maths, long hours and a massive work load, especially in 3rd and 4th year. You can still do it without honors maths, but you would have to go through a course called preliminary engineering, which is one year before you start into 1st year, or you could do a level 7 degree, which is 3 years, and then do 2 more to get your level 8. Either way its a year longer.

GaryIrv93

overshoot wrote: »

iv seen the maths engineer argument on another thread and yea you can, one lad had done foundation maths and some eejit started going on how he wouldnt trust him even though he got a first. but there is going to be a lot of maths in it and if you arent in maths because you dont like it (removing possible teacher's influence) id say stay away.
there is also areas like architectural technology, its more than this but detailing of buildings, regulations are the bread and butter.

alright probably won't look at it anymore. not looking for anything full of maths etc... cheers btw

shanered

I didn't do Honors and admit its pretty tough..

GaryIrv93

shanered wrote: »

I didn't do Honors and admit its pretty tough..

It looks like it. My brother does Mechanical Engineering and I've seen most of the kinds of stuff he's doing -the Fluid Mechanics, Electronics, Physics etc. All maths.

It looks like an interesting course but since I've never taken the slightest liking to any maths in school, it would definitley be a very bad idea for me to go in to C.E or S.E. Instead I've been looking at Aviation Technology in DIT. From what I hear there is quite a bit a bit of maths and electronics involved but nothing too hard, luckily.

miss no stars

I did the level 8 structural degree and in hindsight I enjoyed it. I say in hindsight because when you're swamped with work and lookng at your friends doing arts who have 8 hours of lectures a week it can be a bit demoralising and can make you resent the fact that you only get a level 8 degree for it when you do so much more work than your arts friends. But now that I'm free of the workload, even towards the end of the degree (latter half of 3rd year onwards), I realised that despite the workload, I actually am interested in and enjoy the subjects. I think that's half the battle. You won't mind working hard at something you really like.

If you don't have honours maths you'd need to go in through preliminary engineering or through the level 7 degree.

I wouldn't base the difficulty of maths in the course on whether you find maths difficult at second level though, it's well taught at 3rd level. I didn't like maths at 2nd level but it's routine for the structural students to come out with maths exam results in the high 90s.

In my experience, people who showed up completely sober for all their lectures didn't struggle with that aspect though. Maybe struggled with the workload at times, but if you don't carry on with missing lectures and not doing the work the lecturers tell you to do then you should be fine. Like, it's not a course you can sail through, even the best students have to work really hard (or do a load of repeats), but if your mechanical aptitude is strong it will count for an awful lot. You can be a mathematial savant and fail everything but maths in that course if you can't think mechanically. Conversely, you can be pretty rubbish at maths and do just fine if you understand the structural theory.

Would you consider doing the level 7 course instead? It's not as mathsy really, but you'd get the more engineer-ey side of things and you'd then have the option to go on to do the level 8 if you found you liked it and did well in it.

The_Gatsby

i'm doing the level 7 Civil Engineering degree and am enjoying it. There is a lot of maths but if you concentrate and go to all your lectures then it's not too bad. I didnt really go last year and scraped my Christmas exam (40% :O ). I'm attending well this year and it's not too hard (I only did ordinary maths for the LC). The hardest subject I think is Structural Mechanics. It's pretty hard to get your head around it at first but once you learn the methods then it's not too bad. The science aspect isn't too bad either, I've never done any science subjects before and, although I find it challenging, it's by no means difficult. I just don't do as much study as I should :P Besides, if you don't like the maths side of it, things like CAD and Building Technology make up for it

steve2012

i plan to apply for the level 7 civil engineering course in dit . i know you wont get a job in ireland but id love to travel so i wouldnt mind working abroad.lukebray how do you find the course ? does the course involve any labwork or would it be mostly taking notes ? any information you have on the course would help

The_Gatsby

steve2012 wrote: »

i plan to apply for the level 7 civil engineering course in dit . i know you wont get a job in ireland but id love to travel so i wouldnt mind working abroad.lukebray how do you find the course ? does the course involve any labwork or would it be mostly taking notes ? any information you have on the course would help

I found it on the DIT website, is that what you mean? There's a bit of lab work for science. One for chemistry and physics once every 2 weeks, it's not too bad. The rest of the classes would be notetaking and the drawing/CAD are practical classes which is good.

The only thing about the level 7 is if you want to progress onto level 8, you'll end up doing about 5 years I think? That's 3 years at the level7 and then you'd transfer into third year in the level 8 and branch off into either Structural or more environmental engineering.

Also, there is a bit of public speaking (we've done a good amount this year) as in presentations and stuff but it's not too bad. I was incredibly nervous, as was everybody else, but once you do it it's easy and the other ones get easier from there.

Any other questions, just ask

stevie1122

steve2012 wrote: »

i plan to apply for the level 7 civil engineering course in dit . i know you wont get a job in ireland but id love to travel so i wouldnt mind working abroad.lukebray how do you find the course ? does the course involve any labwork or would it be mostly taking notes ? any information you have on the course would help

A bit in replying but yes the level 7 isn't too hard (I didn't study in DIT but the courses would be more or less the same) I didn't attend much in first or second year and ended up having to repeat most of the exams in both years in August but got through. I attended a lot more in 3rd year and got on fine in the exams. I ended up teaching myself 90% of the material from the class notes because I found it very hard to listen in class because I have no interest at all in engineering. I really just attended to get the class notes.

It does involve labs in mechanics, design, materials, geotech, hydraulics etc depending on your lecturer these can be easy enough or they can be difficult.

I got an A1 in pass maths so I didn't really find any of the maths difficult although as said it can be hard to get your head around some of the structural stuff. If your interested in this kind of stuff then go for it, I myself have no interest at all in engineering which made attending and studying very hard. I am now going into the final the year of the level 8 and this year (3rd year of the level 8) was a whole new ball game the Structural Design and Mechanics were extremely difficult mainly down to the lecturer going out of his way to make the exams in both subjects as difficult as possible. So if you did or do decide to do the course and struggle with the Level 7 I wouldn't advise going on to do the level 8.

As for going abroad to get jobs at the minute it's almost impossible to get a job with an engineering degree abroad without at least 2 or 3 years work experience companies won't even look at people who have just graduated you will have no chance of getting any experience in this country even if you are willing to work for nothing unless you happen to know someone who is hiring.I had planned on going abroad after getting my level 7 and spent a year trying to get work as an engineer with no success so I ended up going back to do the Level 8 luckily now I have a relative working as an engineer in Canada who I will be going over to after I finish the level 8 and he will be able to help me out with a job. If he wasn't over there I don't know what id do.

At the end of the day all employers will look more favourably on work experience rather than higher level degrees so if do the level 7 and finish it and have a choice of working as an engineer or going on to do the level 8 my advice would be to take the job. The last thing ill say is what my class was told on the first day of first year 90% of what you learn in college you will never use.

shanered

Also just to add, to be able to become chartered, and be able to "sign-off" on buildings and structural designs you require a masters as of this year, was a little disappionted to find it would take nearly 4 years from now to finish at that level, all that, and then I'd still have no experience and that's even if I didn't have to repeat a year for any reason.