What is it like studying mechanical Engineering at the University of Dundee?
Hi, my name is Bradley and I'm just finishing my first year studying Mechanical Engineering at the University of Dundee and in this video I'm going to explain exactly what that's been like.
The first thing that I want to touch on is the subjects and the modules and how they're structured together.
The year is divided into two semesters and each semester has four modules.
In our first semester I had science and Engineering, Mathematics, Electromagnetism and circuits, Mechanics and our engineering project.
Second semester changed slightly. We had maths again, waves and mechanics, thermodynamics and then our project once again.
For our project in semester one, we built and designed a real wind turbine. In semester 2, we designed and built a Lego Mindstorms robot and programmed it using Python to follow a track autonomously.
Currently, we're learning CAD through On Shape and we have to design a mechanism with more than 15 complex parts. We're then going to 3D print our parts and physically assemble the mechanism.
For the projects, we mostly meet in groups during lab sessions, but for the rest of the subjects it's usually a mix between tutorials, seminars, and workshops.
There's about 40 people studying first year mechanical engineering, but we share all of our modules with people studying different degrees such as other engineering disciplines or physics.
Every single student is provided with an advisor of studies who's there to answer any questions or concerns that you might have or help you if you're struggling academically.
It's also very easy to e-mail your lecturer and ask them for help. If you're ever confused about anything, they're always happy to help.
The School of Science and Engineering is based in the Fulton Building, which has its very own common room with couches and tables. This is a great place to hang around with friends or do some work. It's also right beside the main library.
We're tested by continuous assessment, which means that every week we have an assignment due for each subject on that week's topic.
This usually involves a couple problems that we need to solve and maybe one or two multiple choice questions, but roughly the time scale should take you around two or three hours.
We also have a mid-term exam and an end of term exam for each subject which has a much higher weighting than the weekly assignments.
Your projects are marked on their performance as well as a written out formal report.
If you want to know more about the societies and sports clubs that we have at the university or if you want to know more about Dundee as a city or maybe the nightlife, check out the University website or a couple of the other videos that we have posted.
