Engineering @ Christ's, Cambridge in 2015

Interview format

2x interviews

Interview content

First interview: motivation to study Engineering, technical discussion; Second interview: technical questions

Best preparation

"i-want-to-study-engineering.org"; a book called "Bebop to the Boolean Boogie"; talking to an ex Cambridge graduate.

Final thoughts

<p>Its very difficult to predict how you have done afterwards, so not worth the stress of trying to!</p>

Remember this advice isn't official. There is no guarantee it will reflect your experience because university applications can change between years. Check the official Cambridge and Oxford websites for more accurate information on this year's application format and the required tests.

Also, someone else's experience may not reflect your own. Most interviews are more like conversations than tests and like, any conversation, they are quite interactive.

Interview Format

2 interviews - one technical and one about likes/dislikes. One with the 2 engineering directors of studies and one with 2 fellows.

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

Interview 1: Talk about what motivations to study engineering. The interview was with the 2 directors of studies and they made me feel very welcome and comfortable before starting. We were all sat on sofas in one of their offices and it felt a lot more relaxed than the other interview. I was asked one moderately technical question about drawing sine graphs. I was incredibly nervous to start and drew the sine graph in completely the wrong place, after which my interviewer told me to relax and gave me a new piece of paper and told me to start again - this really helped me actually get into the question rather than sitting there worrying!

Interview 2: questions about resistors, current flows and power output in a network. The interview was a lot less relaxed and took place in a supervision room in Christ's with a couple of non-engineering fellows (one was a chemical engineering fellow, the other a mathematician). Both interviewers were fairly abrasive and seemed to want to churn through questions as fast as possible without paying much attention to the process or workings (would move on to the next question as soon as I got stuck).

How did you prepare?

"i-want-to-study-engineering.org" helped massively with preparing for potential interview questions. I read a book called "Bebop to the Boolean Boogie", which was what convinced me that I actually wanted to do the course and also gave me something to write about in my personal statement. On top of this, a sibling of one of my friends had studied Engineering at Cambridge already so he was a great help with knowing what to expect with the entire process.

Looking back, what advice would you give to your past self?

I came out of my interview absolutely convinced that I was never going to need to come back to Cambridge - the offer was a complete surprise! On the other hand, I've got friends that came out thinking that it had gone perfectly and didn't get offers. Everybody's perception of how it went is so subjective that it really isn't worth thinking about!