Postby Smokey » May 2nd, 2011, 6:29 pm
I'd say as a UWI Grad, it makes more sense to do it in the UK.
- Entry will be simple and easy as UWI Eng degrees are all accredited by UK bodies
- It's one year (as opposed to 2 in the US)
Now the USA has excellent engineering schools (MIT, Caltech, Stanford etc.) but you will be required to write GRE & US Student Visa is sometimes a pain to get.
As for your chances at the top UK schools........well firstly programs state their minimum entry requirements. Most will say an 2.1 (i.e. Upper Second Class Honors Degree) is required. You should make it into the majority of those programs. Just note, Cambridge as the worlds #1 University is very competitive and even though they specify a 2.1 degree, you may lose out if there are a ton of first class applicants.
Now for the posters trying to put down UWI's degrees and bigging up UTT....I agree somewhat with Devourment's assesment. I say this as a person who has worked with UTT for 3 years assisting with the development of some of the Engineering Syllabuses.
In terms of content, everything is there.......however, we had to vastly scale back the difficulty due to the Student Quality. However, there's a reason why almost ever Accredited Engineering University accepts only those with AB in Maths and Phys A-levels. The majority of students had problems with CXC work. That is why we made a lot of the work lab only, and forced lecturers to mark graciously to ensure the pass level was good.
Just remember UWI's Eng programs are accredited by respective international Engineering Institutions and Accreditation takes several things into consideration.
1. Facilities
2. Research
3. Student Quality
Once in a while, we'd have a capable hardworking student who I always encouraged to go to UWI and finish off their degree.
Now, on a more positive UTT note...the research department has been growing with the large Mphil Programs (with tonnes of UWI students). Also, due to not bending over to the wills of the accreditors UTT was alllowed to expand its program wider than UWI thus exposing our graduates to more of "real world".
Honestly, I think UTT should never have been created. TnT is too small to host two engineering schools. Reason being, UWI's acceptance level of Elec Eng is on par with top international institutions (i.e. needing AB, Mat & Phy to gain entry). However, Mech Eng needs a B and C.....already that standard of entry is below international levels....with two competiting institutions, with class space for say 100 each, you will be forced to accept lower grades just to fill the class rooms. Doing that and keeping up your standard is extremely difficult. Universities have lost accredit ion for sh*t like that.
IMO resources should have been pumped into improving UWI and making it a better institution while simultaneous develop proper technical schools for skilled labor.
