Help help help

[erastes]

OK - So I've hit a stumbling block with my book. *hates research hate hate
hate*

I have a boy who wants to go to Oxbridge - this is 1960...

He's got an engineering kind of mind, but I don't think degrees in
"Engineering" were actually offered until the 1990's - so what sort of
carreer path would he have? anyone know?

Degree in Maths? or Physics? Then what? Not an apprentice?

Comments

[cloudofcalm.livejournal.com]

Physics might be a good idea... My uncle is now in engineering and architecture, went to Cambridge to study Pure and Applied Maths at Clare College. He would've gone around the time you're talking about, early sixties - and he then went on, found a job and went into engineering via the vocation.

[zoepaleologa.livejournal.com]

Have a look at Oxford's website. The department is older than you think:

http://www.eng.ox.ac.uk/World/Info/History/index.html

Cambridge, too, has an older Engineering department than you realise:

http://www.eng.cam.ac.uk/125.shtml

[eroticjames.livejournal.com]

I was going to say, I know there were degreed engeneers in the US as early as the thritys. Ya'll over there were always ahead of us on the education curve.

[divinereverie.livejournal.com]

Well, we're not British, but my mom's cousin's husband is an engineer, and he's around the same age as my parents, so he was out of college by 1970. It seems highly plausible to me that your boy could do it ;) Even computer engineering should have been around then.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I do like the sound of Pure and Applied Maths... So sexy!

Although PLEASE I hope to god my protagonist never wants to have a bloody conversation about it!!!

Thank you!

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for that - that's fascinating! The page I found said that they weren't available until quite recently.

What annoys me is that they don't say WHAT the degree is called - they just assume you know ....

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Thank you! It just goes to show that one should research more deeply and not trust one source!

xxx

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I shall look into that - that's a good idea...

[aunty_marion]

Don't remind me, I did Pure & Applied Maths for A-level! However, since the Applied part was almost identical to O-level Physics (at least in our syllabuseseses), and I never could quite get the hang of calculus in the Pure part, I am occasionally still amused to have achieved an O-level Pass in it. In a subject one couldn't (at the time) do at O-level.

[themostepotente.livejournal.com]

What about chemical engineering?

[cloudofcalm.livejournal.com]

http://www.admissions.ox.ac.uk/courses/math.shtml

Hee, maths is actually fun to discuss, at times. Various quirks and so on. He'd be nicknamed a 'mathmo' at uni, actually - short for mathematician, and the interview process generally involves a discussion with the tutors, and doing a mathematical problem publically while explaining reasoning, or so I'm told.