Aerospace Engineering including Foundation Year
Take your first steps towards an aerospace career as you prepare for our full-time degree. Explore the industry surrounding aviation and space as you build the key knowledge and skills you’ll need to thrive as an engineer.
How to apply Apply through UCAS Book an Open Day Chat to Us/prod01/channel_2/media/university-of-south-wales/site-assets/images/08-subjects/engineering-aerospace/Flight-Simulator-Exercise_41509-cropped.jpg)
Key Course Details
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UCAS Code
H50F
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Start Date
September
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Location
Pontypridd
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Campus Code
A
Fees
Home students
£9,790*
International students
£17,200*
- Full-time fees are per year. Part-time fees are per 20 credits.
Our Foundation Year will provide you with the knowledge and skills to progress onto our full Aerospace Engineering degree. Grow your confidence as you learn with the help of our expert staff and using cutting-edge facilities.
DESIGNED FOR
Our Foundation Year is perfect for those wanting to study our full Aerospace Engineering degree, but who don’t currently meet the entry requirements. You’ll establish a strong foundation, including essential skills and knowledge, as you learn about different types of engineering and gain practical experience in our cutting-edge facilities.
Career paths
- Certification and Airworthiness Engineer
- Design Engineer
- Mechanical Engineer
- Project Management
- Research Engineer
Skills taught
- Problem-solving through analysis using scientific and engineering theory
- Developed knowledge of cutting-edge technology
- Teamworking, management, and leadership.
- Communication skills
- Understanding professional responsibilities
- Professionalism
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Course Highlights
Module Overview
Develop essential engineering knowledge and a strong mathematical base in our Foundation Year, designed to build your technical confidence and academic skills before progressing onto the Aerospace Engineering degree.
Starting your University Journey
This module helps you develop academic, personal and professional skills for university study. You’ll reflect on your progress, build confidence, and create an evidence-based portfolio to support your future learning.
Engineering in Action: From Theory to Practice
Explore real-world engineering challenges as you develop your theoretical knowledge, including core mathematical and scientific principles. Learn key skills through tutorials and seminars before applying them in immersive laboratories and workshops.
Design and Manufacture in Action
Discover the fundamental principles of engineering design and manufacturing, including the knowledge and practical skills to approach real-world challenges. You’ll explore the full design process, from research to creation and everything in between.
The Impact Challenge
You’ll work in teams with other Foundation Year students to tackle real-world challenges, developing solutions through research, curiosity, collaboration, and responsible problem-solving while building skills that will support your future studies.
Course Highlights
How you’ll learn
You can study this degree on a full time basis and it also offers a sandwich work placement should you decide this is an appropriate pathway for you.
This aerospace programme is taught through lectures, which are supported by tutorials, practical sessions and seminar groups. Wherever possible, your work will be based on live projects and case studies, with contributions from industry professionals.
There is a range of assessment methods, such as formal closed book exams, group work, individual projects, oral assessments and laboratory experiments, exams contribute approximately 30% of all assessments on the course.
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Teaching staff
The staff that deliver the modules have a breadth of expertise in their subject areas.
Some have developed this expertise through high quality research. The research areas are international in their scope whilst also having a relevance locally, often working with international companies that operate locally.
Others have developed their expertise through successful careers in industry and are now using that knowledge to teach and prepare the students for their own careers.
This blend of backgrounds represented in the academic staff give a breadth to the student experience and develops them technically and professionally.
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Placements
We know nothing beats getting out into the real world, seeing how the engineering industry operates and developing your skills in real environments.
After progressing onto our full degree, we’ll support you in finding meaningful work experience and you’ll have the opportunity to complete a Sandwich Year placement after your second year. Our students have enjoyed placements with leading companies such as GE Aviation, Airbus and British Airways Maintenance.
We organise several field trips and invite industry experts from various companies to deliver lectures and support projects, giving you further insights into the world of work.
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Facilities
The University has invested £3.3m in its aerospace facilities, including a two-storey Aerospace Centre extension, offering engineering students 1,000m2 of workshop and lab space, two aircraft hangars, and a MP521 flight simulator.
The Centre houses a Jetstream 31 aircraft, gas turbine maintenance, riveting, hand tool, and welding workshops. Additionally, it features clean and dirty composite workshops, labs for electronic tasks, avionics, hydraulics, and pneumatics. Sub-sonic wind tunnels facilitate aerodynamic instruction.
The Merlin MP521 simulator, programmable for any aircraft type, is pivotal in design testing and flight test preparation.
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Innovation Hub at USW
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ENTRY REQUIREMENTS
Typical qualification requirements:
- A Level: DD
- BTEC: BTEC Extended Diploma Pass Pass Pass or BTEC Diploma Pass Pass
- Access to HE: Pass Access to HE Diploma with a minimum of 48 UCAS Tariff points
- T Level: Pass (D or E)
Additional requirements include:
The University normally requires a minimum 3 GCSEs including Mathematics/Numeracy and English at Grade C or Grade 4 or above, or their equivalent, but consideration is given to individual circumstances.
International applications welcomed:
We welcome international applications with equivalent qualifications of our entry requirements. For more details related to your country of residence, please view our dedicated country pages.
English language requirements
International applicants will need to have achieved an overall of IELTS 6.0 with a minimum of 5.5 in each component/TOEFL 4 overall and a minimum of 4 in each component or equivalent.
Equivalents can be located on our English Language pages.
If you have previously studied through the medium of English, IELTS might not be required, please visit our country specific page for further details. If your country is not featured, please contact us.
If you do not meet the English entry criteria, please visit our Pre-Sessional course pages.
Contextual offers
We may make you a lower offer based on a range of factors, including your background (where you live and the school or college that you attended, for example), your experiences and individual circumstances (as a care leaver, for example). This is referred to as a contextual offer, and we receive data from UCAS to support us in making these decisions.
USW prides itself on its student experience and we support our students to achieve their goals and become a successful graduate. This approach helps us to support students who have the potential to succeed and who may have faced barriers that make it more difficult to access university.
We're here to help
Whether you a have a question about your course, fees and funding, the application process or anything else, there are plenty of ways you can get in touch, and we'd love to talk to you. You can contact our friendly admissions team by phone, email or chat to us online.
Fees and Funding
£9,790
per year*£17,200
per year*Additional Costs
As a student of USW, you’ll have access to lots of free resources to support your study and learning, such as textbooks, publications, online journals, laptops, and plenty of remote-access resources. Whilst in most cases these resources are more than sufficient in supporting you with completing your course, additional costs, both obligatory and optional, may be required or requested for the likes of travel, memberships, experience days, stationery, printing, or equipment.
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Introducing Calon
We are investing in the future of STEM with the exciting new Calon building at the heart of our Pontypridd Campus.
University Quality Assurance
At USW, we regularly review our courses in response to changing patterns of employment and skills demand to ensure we offer learning designed to reflect today’s student needs and tomorrow’s employer demands.
If during a review process course content is significantly changed, we’ll write to inform you and talk you through the changes for the coming year. But whatever the outcome, we aim to equip our students with the skillset and the mindset to succeed whatever tomorrow may bring. Your future, future-proofed.
How to apply
All applications for full-time undergraduate courses or foundation degrees should be made via UCAS. Take the next step: Apply through UCAS. You can apply to us directly for all part-time undergraduate courses, if you’re seeking advanced entry or you’re an international student. To apply directly, please choose the application form below for your preferred start date and mode of study (full-time or part-time).
Advanced entry
If you already have a relevant qualification or experience related to the course you're applying for, you may be eligible to start at a later stage of the course. For example, students from partner colleges can ‘top up’ their qualifications to a degree by joining us in Year Two or Year Three of a course. This process is known as ‘advanced entry’, you can apply directly to the University for 'advanced entry' using the application forms provided above.
Applicants accepted through advanced entry may study a different combination of modules to those advertised, as they will be joining a course already in progress. You will be contacted and advised about these modules once your application has been processed and an offer made.
International admissions
International applicants can apply to us directly. If the University has an in-country team in your region, your application will be assigned to them for assistance.
