Engineering.

At Cambridge, you can apply to study either Engineering or Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology. From year three onwards, students can also choose to undertake the Manufacturing Engineering course, which places emphasis on the latest developments in data science and sustainability to address some of the major challenges facing society. Oxford presents a unified Engineering Science degree under which students can further specialise from year three onwards. Whilst the first two years at both Universities focus on a small number of foundational subjects, these differ slightly between the two.

Both Universities showcase excellent connections to industry and world-class facilities and researchers. They also have a similar admissions rate for Engineering, but Cambridge receives approximately double the number of applications per year to Oxford. Furthermore, whilst Cambridge invites most of its applicants to interview (75% of home applicants invited for interview), Oxford is much more selective (37% applicants invited for interview).

The teaching style is similar in both institutions, as most of the students’ learning happens in intensive small groups, which range from one to four students. They are named differently at the two universities: at Oxford it is called the tutorial system, while at Cambridge it is known as the supervision system. These supervisions/tutorials are facilitated by either members of staff or postgraduate researchers that are experts in the area of engineering that you study. You will be challenged on your knowledge of the subject and be pushed intellectually to discuss important and multidisciplinary topics that could reach further than the scope of the course. As a supervisor in Industrial Engineering, for example, I push my students to discuss the implications of what they have learnt in the lectures within the context of real-life examples of Industrial Engineering.

It is in this small-group learning ecosystem where true thinking and creativity occur, and hence why it forms a fundamental part of our Young Oxbridgian, Undergraduate Admissions, and Postgraduate tracks. Our students’ intellectual growth is of paramount priority in helping them achieve their academic and career goals. Through exposure to Oxbridge-style learning early on in their academic journey, we help the student establish the intellectual habits needed for success at Oxbridge, such as critical thinking, creativity, and constant evaluation of our knowledge assumptions.