Difference between a Bachelor in Engineering and a Masters in Engineering?

[loopy]

How can they condense a 4 year undergraduate degree into a 2 year postgraduate course?

Is a Bachelor in Engineering looked more highly upon (as it's longer)?

Would the Masters in Engineering course have more assumed knowledge and just be more hardcore and demanding?

Is it reasonable for someone from a totally unrelated background (e.g. accounting) to study a Masters in Engineering and then to become a qualified Engineer?

Would you need to have done specialist maths in VCE to do well?


Thanks

[mark_alec]

They do not condense a four year course into a two year one. In order to complete an MEng in two years you need to have covered engineering subjects during your degree.

There will be more assumed knowledge, since it is meant to directly follow on from the appropriate undergraduate majors.

If someone has the desire, it is possible to go from an unrelated field to engineering, but that will probably take 3 years. If you have not taken the equivalent of second year university maths, it will probably not be possible to be admitted.

Take a look at http://eng.unimelb.edu.au/study/pdf/course-guide-2012.pdf and contact them if it doesn't answer your questions.

[Surgeon]

Hey mate,

Firstly, I know next to nothing about engineering so I'm just looking at this from a rational point of view.

The undergraduate degree is 4 years long because I'm assuming that they teach you everything from the beginning. For the first year (maybe two) you would study general engineering and you would then go on to major in something (ie. Civil engineering).

In regards to the Masers of Engineering, I'm not sure what the prerequisite subjects would be or what the application process for your chosen field would be like but there would definitely be a lot of assumed knowldge. Hence, the 2-3 year full-time course. Take a look at this, for example. http://www.eng.unimelb.edu.au/study/graduate/master-eng-biomedical.html.

I doubt many people would go into a Masters of Engineering from a completely unrelated background because they may not have satisfied the entrance requirements. That's upto you to look into.

I don't think specialist maths is a prerequisite (even for undergraduate engineering) but it would probably help.

I hope that was helpful in some way!

Edit: mark_alec bet me to it.

[tkev1n]

Hey, I think I can answer some of your questions. (Doing BComm at UoM with the engineering pathway)

Currently in first year, doing a double major in finance and management. You start engineering subjects from first year and they take up all your breadth slots and one of your commerce electives.

1. No real condensing as eng subjects are within your undergrad. So its pretty much 3+2 years of engineering.

2. Relates to 1.

3. Knowledge comes from the subjects you do in ur undergrad course. Not sure if its more hardcore/demanding. First class of MEng students in this system graduated last year.

4. Not a pre req. But highly recommended imo. If your going down the comm, then eng pathway, its hard to fit in the extra maths subject that you have to do if u didnt do spec. could just overload i suppose. not as big of a problem in science i dont think.

Feel free to ask more questions. I was really confused when i tried to suss out the Bachelor+MEng vs BEng last year.

[killer_bot]

If someone has the desire, it is possible to go from an unrelated field to engineering, but that will probably take 3 years. If you have not taken the equivalent of second year university maths, it will probably not be possible to be admitted.

Umm...but couldn't they just take calculus 1 (if you didn't do spesh), calculus 2 and linear algebra as single CAP subjects to get the prerequisites and then do the prelim year bridging program and then proceed on to do the 2 year masters?

not sure about others but for chemical engineering you only require 25 credit points in university level maths and 25 credit points for chemistry. so just 4 subjects.

however this means completing the qualification in 4 years intead of 2years and CAP subjects are full-fee. so you're probably better off doing another bachelor degree somewhere else in a CSP instead if you really want to do engineering.

[mark_alec]

If they have taken maths subjects as CAP subjects then they will have fulfilled the maths prerequisites.

[linle]

I'm currently in the BE. Melbourne doesn't offer these anymore. You will have to go through the Masters.
Masters usually require you to have at least 200 pts. In other words min of 2 years. You can jump into
the Masters with no knowledge at all but it will take you longer. In your undergrad degree you can do
some of these before as breadth.