Title says it all.

Although I am still miles away from university levels, I need to start thinking about it already and look at their minimmum requirements so I can push for them in the upcoming 2-3 years.

I have always wanted to continue my career working with cars. Not specificly just with racing cars, but also road ones. Automomative stuff in general.

I remember in resistance materials class couple of years back, we had a free desing course. I spent hours building my simple F1 car, even stayed after school couple of times to perfect it as much as possible. I enjoyed it very much, and the thought of being able to work on full scale real cars was just heaven in my mind.

Ofcourse, to get there I need to train in appropiate subjects in college.
The thing is - I dont know which ones!

I have looked at couple universities that do such skills and tried finding what they need to accept you. None of them state it tho! Ok, Oxford did for one course. But every other one, simply went on how "A Levels do not always show full potential of the student blah blah blah...."

So I guess the real questions are simply:

What courses should I really study/look into if I want to move on to Automative/Motorsport career in the future?
What university with such skills would you recommend/know?

I am sure there are people on these forums that have gone to do something simillar in their life. So I guess its aimed more at them - What advice can you give?

At the moment I am really lost on this whole subject.

Also - Oxford stated that they require 2 A levels - Preferably in Maths and Science. The question that came up to me was; Is it Science in general, or Physics/Chemistry ect.?

Any help is highly appreciated.

For Engineering (and I'd recommend either a Mechanical or Aeronautical degree, rather than Automotive or Motorsport version) you'll need to concentrate on physics and maths. Double (aka Further) Maths at A-Level would be a bonus.

It's also worth trying to find out what CAD software each Uni uses primarily with undergraduates if you are planning on becoming a designer. Brunel, where I went, used Ideas, which is used by about 3 companies worldwide, and is totally different to the 'industry standards' of Catia, Solidworks, Inventor/AutoCAD etc. I've had to forget everything (and it really is pretty much everything, including workflow techniques, design planning stuff, as well as how to actually use the program) to teach myself Inventor/AutoCAD (I tried Solidworks, but keep going back to Inventor).

Getting experience in a design office and a machine shop (particularly a CNC equipped machine shop, but also a manual machine shop) would be a great advantage before you get to university.

If you could, err, acquire a version of some CAD software (Solidworks is probably a great one to learn) then you could get yourself 100 steps ahead of your peers by teaching yourself how to design stuff.

Edit: Added a picture of what I did this morning to determine cambelt alignment on pulleys. Most 'parts' are just placeholders until I can be bothered to draw them (block and head particularly), and I haven't done the water pump and a few other bits, or internals. Bit of a quick and dirty hack actually

Searching for unis is a bastard.

If they say "Maths and a Science", then indeed any science [bio/chem/physics] will do, but preferably physics. You might even get away with something like psychology as a "science" too.

As for the course, automotive/motosport engineering would be good, but also any type of engineering might work too [eg Aero, Mech, Electrical].

Good Unis? Depends on what grades you're going to get as to where you can go. IIRC there's a guy on here [I think his name is Alex?] who's at Oxford Brookes doing Motorsport Engineering. Top of the pile there's Cambridge, Bath, Bristol, places like that. SpazziJack is applying to do Auto atm so I'll point him here so he can ramble on about it. He's got Loughborough [v good for engineering], UWE and some other places I forget right now

EDIT: BTW to look for entry requirements - go to "Undergrad Admissions, then select the course and it should be on there somewhere

Quote from J@tko :

SpazziJack is applying to do Auto atm

I thought Spazzi was doing Aero like you?

Quote from Wilko868 :

I thought Spazzi was doing Aero like you?

No. He's not clever enough

Quote from J@tko :

No. He's not clever enough

Obvs :P

The course you should take depends on exactly what it is in the motorsports industry you want to do. If you want to do aerodynamics, don't do a purely mechanical degree, for instance.

I, personally, want to get into aerodynamics. Right now I'm in an Industrial Design program (not even close to what I need, really) but I may try for an aerodynamics degree once I'm done this course (in a year and a half from now). I fear I may not be competent enough in math, though.

Just like Maggot, I'm studying product design (which is basically the same as Industrial design, really.) So i can really suggest solidworks Keep away from 3ds max, unless you are into animation n shit. Solidworks, Cadia, or equivalents are the way to go

Quote from Fuse5 :

Just like Maggot, I'm studying product design (which is basically the same as Industrial design, really.) So i can really suggest solidworks Keep away from 3ds max, unless you are into animation n shit. Solidworks, Cadia, or equivalents are the way to go

As much as I love Solidworks, I don't know how useful it would be for aerodynamic applications; a program like Alias is much more well-suited for bodywork. If you're on the mechanical side of things, though, Solidworks may well be the way to go.

I love that program... So easy to use

I've just started a Motorsport Engineering and Design degree. The CAD/CAM package we are learning to use is UGS NX5 and from what I can tell already, it is very good. As for mechanical/aeronautical vs automotive/motorsport it really depends what you want to do. I would go for aeronautical of you specifically want to do aerodynamics. If you want to learn about everything then an automotive/motorsport degree is the way to go. The main advantage of going with a motorsport degree is that you get hands on experience with racing cars as part of your degree.

I'm looking at trying to work in the auto industry too. My dad works for Chrysler, so I know a bit about what degrees are useful. I have had conversations like this with him many times.

Mechanical and Aerospace/Aeronautical Engineers are very similar, and in many cases may do the exact same job. Either option should be a very good basis for car stuff, but the emphasis is a little different, which could affect the job that you get coming out of college. It all depends on what interests you. I know Aerospace Engineers who do jobs that involve no Aero, and my dad is an ME who is currently working on heating systems in electric cars, which involves some air flow and electrical stuff, and not much in the way of mechanical.

Design degrees are also a good option, but a very different way to go. It depends on how artsy you are and how interested you are in the appearance of the cars.

I'm currently an ME, but I think I'm going to switch to Industrial Design, since this is what really interests me. ID is part design, part engineering. My dad used to do a job that was very like this, and I always thought it sounded like the perfect job. Basically what he did was tell the engineers why their solution looked like crap, and try to explain to the designers why it was physically impossible to construct what they had drawn. Since I'm very good at design and math both, this is a good fit for me I think.

As for CAD, yes it's a very good idea to do some before college if you are interested in it, but not necessary. You will just have to take introductory Engineering Graphics classes with a different program. And then every company uses a different program, and they change every few years or so.

Can't help you much with schools in Europe, but if for some reason you want to go to college in the states, hit me up. (Some people really want to get away from home, like me.) I just had to do all of my school research in the last year, so I should know what's up.

Thank you very much guys. Some nice info in here!