Structure of the Courses

The Undergraduate Engineering course is organised in four parts, each taking a year. Each year has three terms, two of eight weeks of formal teaching and one of seven weeks. The periods of formal teaching and examinations in the third term vary from year to year. The Michaelmas Term runs from early October to early December, the Lent Term from mid January to mid March, and the Easter Term from late April to mid June.

For the first two years undergraduates sit tripos examinations at the end of the Easter Term. The third and fourth years sit them at the start of the Easter Term. Continuous assessment by coursework is used together with the examination marks for classing the undergraduates at the end of each year. To be a candidate for honours in a third year examination, an undergraduate must have gained honours in the second year, and similarly to be a candidate for honours in the fourth year a undergraduate must have gained honours in the third. Candidates may not take the same part of the same tripos more than once.

During the first two years of the course (Parts IA and IB) all undergraduates study substantially the same subjects. These extend across the whole range of engineering and include mechanical, electrical, information and civil engineering, design, manufacture and management, together with the mathematical and computing skills that underpin much of modern engineering. Parts IA and IB provide a coherent basic course of the principles underlying engineering science as a whole. Although Part IA is not designed to be taken alone, undergraduates may change to other subjects after one year, and indeed they must do if they wish to take the three-year course leading to the Chemical Engineering Tripos.

At the end of their second year undergraduates decide which tripos to prepare for in their third and fourth years. It is straightforward to choose the Engineering Tripos (Parts IIA and IIB), or MET (Parts IIA and IIB), both of which are based on the first two years of the Engineering Tripos and are offered in the Department. Instead, they may decide to change department to read Computer Science, Management Studies or indeed any other subject for which they are qualified. A small number of students may spend their third year at MIT as part of the Cambridge-MIT Exchange Programme.

Undergraduates staying with the Engineering Tripos specialise in a chosen Engineering Area. During the first two terms of their third year (Part IIA) they take ten modules, at least six of which must be from one of the specified Engineering Areas. The third term is devoted entirely to two projects chosen from a wide range of available topics. In their fourth year (Part IIB) undergraduates take eight modules, at least four of which must be from one of the specified Engineering Areas, from a total of about seventy. They also undertake a major project occupying about half of the total time throughout the year.

Undergraduates taking MET specialise completely in manufacturing engineering and management. They all take the same course in both the third (MET Part IIA) and fourth years (MET Part IIB). In the third year they study five subjects and undertake one major project, all in the Department in Cambridge. In the fourth year they take six modules in the Department together with five projects in industry, one of which is a long project occupying eight weeks. In both years there are a number of industrial visits, culminating in an overseas tour at the end of the fourth year.

In order to gain honours in Part IB of the Engineering Tripos candidates must have at least four weeks of approved industrial experience. A further four weeks of approved industrial experience are required for honours in Part IIA of the Engineering Tripos and Part I of the Manufacturing Engineering Tripos.

Engineering Tripos Part I