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Cranfield's applied approach and close links with industry mean 94% of our graduates find jobs relevant to their degree or go on to further study within six months of graduation. Our careers team support you while you are studying and following graduation with workshops, careers fairs, vacancy information and one-to-one support. In addition, the Cranfield University Business Incubation Centre provides a rent-free facility and guidance should you wish to start your own business following your degree.
Contact time with academic staff
Lecturing is just one element of an academic’s role, so do consider what your access to academic teaching staff will be like? Do they teach on both undergraduate and postgraduate programmes – this may make it more challenging to interact with them. Ask if the academic supervises PhD students or is responsible for undertaking industry research… this may benefit your learning experience – transfer of new knowledge gleaned from up-to-date research into your MSc programme will be vital.
Cranfield's engagement with industry ensures that our MSc programmes continually benefit from the most up-to-date research rather than inflexible and out of date curricula. As a wholly postgraduate university with a student base of 3,000, Cranfield offers an excellent student to staff ratio and small class sizes.
In the current Times Higher World University Rankings Cranfield’s top achievements included being ranked:
- Second in the UK and the World in the international student category
- Top in the UK for staff to student ratio, taking 6th place in the World
Position in league tables
There are numerous league tables about universities – some informal, written by current and previous students, and some that are more formal, provided by The Times (Good University Guide), Financial Times (Business School rankings) and The Guardian (University Guide and Rankings). These guides and rankings have their place in helping you make a decision.
However, these guides need to be read in context… League tables are constructed within certain parameters and are useful at representing key data from institutions that conform to the masses. Try to find Cranfield on The Times and Guardian University Guides and you'll be out of luck – due to the simple |
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fact that we don't have any undergraduates and can't directly be compared to those universities that do.
So what other ways are there to assess the universities you are considering? See below to find out more…
- The Quality Assurance Agency (QAA)
- The level of industry funded research
- How strong is the institution's research focus?
- Word of mouth!
Interaction with industry and commerce
Whether you are at the beginning of your career or looking to build on previous experience and qualifications you'll likely be thinking about your next career step. Will this be into industry and commerce, Government or non-Governmental organisations, or into academia?
Whatever your answer to the above question, any access and exposure to industry, commerce, government and non-governmental organisations will be vital during your taught or research degree.
Cranfield’s significant industry interaction and funding is an indication of our desire to focus on practical application:
- we provide consultancy for clients on a local and global scale, complete research projects via PhDs or MSc projects and have organisations accessing and using our facilities
- course steering committees include external representatives from key organisations to ensure our programmes continue to be relevant to the 'real world'
- industry practitioners and alumni members lecture on MSc programmes
- our taught programmes are informed by the research we carry out on behalf of our industrial clients and partners which ensures that the content of our MSc programmes is relevant and up-to-date
- many of our taught courses involve both individual and group research projects which may be in collaboration with industry. These projects allow you to put your specialized skills and knowledge into action in a ‘real-world’ setting.
Access to academic research facilities
Once you are aware of the academic facilities that a university has, one of your key questions will probably be ‘how can I access the facilities?’ and ‘do I get a chance to use them?’ You will also want to consider whether the facilities are at industrial scale or laboratory scale, as well as what software may be used in conjunction with the facilities.
Cranfield’s industry links ensure that we have a suite of facilities which are at industrial scale and include well-equipped laboratories. Masters and Doctoral students have full access to the facilities and industry-standard software appropriate to their programmes, with training and support when required.
Our superb facilities include a fully-functional airfield; precision machining laboratories; FIA approved crash-testing equipment; one of the best equipped multi-phase flow rigs in the UK; the largest icing wind tunnel in the UK; a cabin evacuation simulator; a £1m flight deck simulator and the High Temperature Coatings facility - one of a kind in any European university. |
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