Access to Higher Education Diploma: Engineering Science

Our teachers are ambitious, talented and passionate about making your experience at college the very best it can be.

They have up-to-date industry experience to share with you and the energy and enthusiasm to help you get where you need to be.

They also understand that returning to study as an adult can be tough and that you'll have lots of other priorities to juggle.

They pride themselves on offering lots of one-to-one support to help you do your very best.

Although work experience is not a mandatory element of this course we strongly recommend you complete voluntary work in a scientific environment to support your progression to university.

There may be opportunities to gain work experience with our employer partners.

We can support you through this and we have our very own industry placement and business development team ready to offer help and advice.

Across the year, we engage with local universities to support students who are making decisions about their progression.

We have working relationships with:

• Northumbria University
• Teesside University
• Newcastle University
• Durham University
• The University of Sunderland
• New College Durham
• Cumbria University

We also work closely with several universities to support our students in gaining volunteer work in laboratories to support their university applications.

We currently work closely with Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust to develop our units and they also provide us with exciting industry placement opportunities both on the wards and in hospital laboratories.

Students on the access course make use of facilities at the Baltic campus including our libraries, laboratories, clinical practice rooms, programming facilities and classroom environments.

You will have access to our Careers and Guidance team to help you with your university application and to help you prepare for interviews and assessments.

You must attend an assessment event before enrolling in this course.

Sometimes this can include taking a short online assessment in Maths and English to test your suitability for the programme.

You will also have access to our dedicated welfare and wellbeing team.

Our welfare and wellbeing officers can offer help and advice on emotional support, relationship issues, coping strategies, time management and referrals to other services such as counselling.

To get your application started, complete our short online form.

We'll then be in touch to invite you to one of our enrolment events to find out more about the course.

The tutors will then invite you along to the assessment events.

At these events, you will find out if you have a place on the course.

Many of our students progress to local and national universities to study degree programmes.

Some of the courses our students have progressed to are:

• Mechanical Engineering
• Electrical Engineering
• Structural Engineering
• Physics.

To search university programmes and their entry requirements, you can use the UCAS website www.ucas.com.

The standard entry requirements are GCSE grade 4 or above in maths, English and a science.

If you have relevant industry experience in the science and engineering sector or personal experience in a relevant role, for example shadowing a friend or family member, we would encourage you to apply.

If you are aged 19-23 and do not yet have a full level three qualification, you will get the course for free.

If you are aged 24 or higher, or already have a full level three qualification, the full cost of the course is £3,384.

However, the full amount can be covered by the Adult Advanced Learning Loan.

Student Finance England will “write off” the loan once you complete a university degree following on from the Access to HE Diploma, meaning you would not pay anything back.