We are occasionally asked by delegates who have completed their 18th Edition, Level 3 C&G 2391 and Level 4 2396 Design qualifications (as well as their underpinning knowledge qualifications) – ‘What should I do next, qualification wise?’
There are many delegates who feel that the next move for them is a HNC or a Degree in Electrical Engineering, Building Services or Electronics, and we have to explain to them that moving on to ‘Graduate’ level training is very different from Vocational Training.
Graduate training is what is referred to as Higher Education (as opposed to Further Education) and is heavily involved in your ‘Professional Development’. It is often very ‘academic’ based learning, and while there will be practical projects involved in Degrees and HNC’s, they would lean more toward the ‘design’ of controls or improving or developing the output of an electrical supply, rather than the actual installation of any existing kit.
To give you an idea on the subject areas that can be covered at a higher level a particularly good site to go to is called ‘electrcal4u’.
The homepage has a list of general subjects, then links to articles written by PhD students on the subject areas under that title. They are easy to understand and have internal cross-references to help you see how all the subjects interact within the field.
If you like what you see on that site, and decide you want to learn more, then a visit to your local University to see what Engineering Degrees they offer would be the next move.
One thing we do know is that those Graduates who have come from a ‘hands-on’ background do exceptionally well in the Design and Management field, because they have physically carried out many of the applications that the delegates who went straight to University have never completed on site…
Here’s the site, and Good Luck with your choices…
