How does one pick a uni? Do employers care which uni you go to?

@abdurrahman

I think its a concensus among people that have been working in industry that the university you graduate from only affects your first job. After your first job, its about what you did in your first job - so when you start applying for your second or third, by that point they dont really care about your university, they care about what you did in your first job. 

Of course that doesn't mean the first job isn't important, it may be hard to get into a prestigious first job without an MEng from imperial college.

However, this is actually changing as we speak. For example EY, one of the biggest accountancy firms in the world, do not care which university you went to. Technically a graduate from Kingston and a graduate from Oxford have the same chance of getting into a role at EY as each other. This is because they focus heavy on aptitude tests, which EY themselves give you - and a range of activities including online tests, group-tests, group presentations, individual interviews, etc. So in the accountancy sector, its actually all about your own skills, rather than the university you went to.

The job market is evolving. Tech firms aren’t so concerned with hiring graduates from prestigious universities, and the rise of non-graduate employees at Google was on the rise let alone having a good degree from a good university ? 

I don't suspect, however, that this will happen to the engineering sector just yet. I believe its similar to Medicine and Dentistry in the sense that you have to know your ground work before you start learning on the job. You can't learn maths from work experience like you can learn filling in a Tax application on the job. You can't learn the laws of thermodynamics like you can learn preparing and examining financial records on the trot.

But, there are tons of engineering apprenticeships - even from employers like Rolls Royce so ? https://www.notgoingtouni.co.uk/all/filter/keywords/rolls%20royce
There might be a degree apprenticeship that a university (which isn't that prestigious) is offering however having a degree apprenticeship is 10x more helpful in the industry than getting a degree from Imperial College with no experience in the field.

In terms of ranking tables, employers look at the same ranking tables everyone looks at - QS ranking tables and etc. They most likely take the average position of the university from a variety of ranking sources. Or, they just go with the concensus of what the best university is, even if its outdated. I.E the stigma is that Kings College London is better than Queen Mary in general - even if the ranking tables say that Queen Mary is better for engineering, so an employer may prefer the student from Kings College London. So it depends on how traditional the company is as well.

@abdurrahman

With dentistry its a bit different.

All 5th year dentists from every university in the UK do an exam at the end of their course and then get ranked nationally against each other. This allows you to pick where you do your foundation year.

And the higher you are in the ranks, the more likely you’ll get your first pick e.g. London.

So it doesn't really matter which university you go to

@iggydentist Much appreciated 🙂