Pembroke College Cambridge

Engineering

 

UCAS Code H100. Around 328 admitted per year at Cambridge. Pembroke seeks to admit around 16 per year. Assessment with registration required. No written work required. Maths and Physics required. Further maths highly desirable if available. A Level typical offer A star A star A. A star in Maths and further maths (if taken). A* in Physics. Scottish advanced highers typical offer A1 A1 A2. International baccalaureate typical offer: 42 to 43 points, with 776 to 777 at HL. 7 in Higher Level maths and Physics

Engineering at Pembroke

Pembroke Engineering students as a cohort typically do rather well in the competitive examination at the end of each year. 

With about sixty five Engineering students at Pembroke, and with the growing diversity and specialisation of subjects taught in the course, it is not possible for students to be supervised only by Fellows of the College. A considerable proportion of the supervisions are given by post-doctoral researchers or research students. We find that this is the ideal combination, with more experienced Fellows often seeing problems earlier, and more junior supervisors offering more of their time and draw on their more recent experience of being students. In this respect, Pembroke is similar to most other colleges. Students usually attend supervisions in pairs, or threes, and the supervisions usually take place in the afternoons or early evenings.

Each year group has its dedicated Director of Studies who sees every student twice a term, and is responsible for keeping up the high quality of supervisions.

Students who embark on the Engineering course have the option in the third and fourth years, of pursuing many options, including the Management Studies Tripos or the Manufacturing Engineering Tripos. For further details of the course, prospective applicants should see the Engineering Department's Undergraduate Admissions website.

Pembroke Engineering Teaching Staff

Professor Gabor Csanyi - Computational Mechanics

As overall Director of Studies for Engineering in Pembroke, I am responsible for coordinating the work of individual year group directors of study, representing Engineering towards the Senior Tutor's office, and the Admission Tutor's office, and also liaising with the Engineering Department about matters not pertaining to a particular year group.

Pembroke has some of the best engineering supervisors among all the colleges, and there's never any sense of competition between engineering students. It's a friendly, collaborative atmosphere with some of the best support in Cambridge. Plus, it's really close to the department, so we can sleep in a little more than some of our friends.

I do significant admissions work, as well as outreach activities such as Masterclasses and open day events.

In the University, I am a Professor of Molecular Modelling in the Engineering Laboratory. My interests are at the intersection of materials engineering, chemistry, solid state physics and computer science - in particular, machine learning. My research group models the structure and dynamics of materials and molecules on the atomic scale. We do this as accurately as if all electrons were treated explicitly, but many orders of magnitude faster.

Professor Vikram Deshpande - Mechanical behaviour of materials

Dr John Durrell - Superconductivity

Professor Andrea Ferrari - Nanotechnology

Professor Norman Fleck - Mechanics of fracture and fatigue

Professor Jan Maciejowski - Control and systems engineering

Dr Guillaume Hennequin - Neuroscience

Dr Anna-Maria Pappa - Bio-integrated electronics

Admissions

We admit about 16 engineers each year. The course is fast-paced and challenging, and we would expect those applying to have a very strong background in physics and mathematics. Our conditional offers require Mathematics and Physics and one other relevant A-level (or equivalent), for example, Chemistry. In addition, if your school offers Further Mathematics we would expect you to take up this option. If your school offers Further Mathematics but does not allow you to take four A-Levels, we recommend that you take Maths, Physics and Further Maths.

We understand that some schools and colleges are unable to offer Further Maths. If this applies to you, please do not be discouraged from applying. It is important, however, that you tell us about this in your application and that you look for ways to develop your maths knowledge independently. If your school or college is concerned that they may be unable to offer Further Maths, they can find advice and support from the Advanced Mathematics Support Project

If you are unable to take Further Maths you should ask if you could take AS Further Maths or, failing that, try to cover as much relevant pure and mechanics Further Maths content on your own. As well as AMSP resources for students, Isaac Physics offers online support for independently studying Further Maths material.

It is also important that candidates study Mechanics as one, or preferably two of their modules. Engineers with Further Maths as a fourth A-level will be asked for a grade in this subject. We do not require STEP. For those sitting the International Baccalaureate, Higher Level subjects should be Maths (Analysis and Approcahes), Physics and a further relevant subject wherever possible. For information about other qualifications, please contact us.

Further information

Gap year

 A few of our engineering students take a gap year, and those who choose to do so obtain sponsorship and work for their sponsors or find experience through the Year in Industry scheme.  We would particularly encourage those who are very young (i.e. those who may be under eighteen if they come directly from school to Pembroke) to defer for a year. We are very happy to make deferred offers, but expect that students taking a Gap Year will ensure that they keep up their mathematics and physics skills in particular during the year to ease transition once at Cambridge.

Links with other Universities

The Cambridge Engineering Department has established links with  the Ecole Centrale in Paris, and the National University of Singapore, and selected students will be able to spend the third year of the four-year MEng course studying at one of these institutions. Pembroke also has links with Caltech in California and, each year, one or two students join their summer research programme.

Professional Qualifications

The MEng course is accredited by all the major Engineering Institutions as one fulfilling the academic requirements for registration as a Chartered Engineer.

See also the page about Engineering on the University website for further information.

Go to Engineering faculty website

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