The AAPS Application Journey

Having finished off my final exam for the year in May 2020, and with my BEng coming to an end, I found myself contemplating my next steps in life. The best jobs required further qualifications and it seemed like possessing a ‘simple’ automotive engineering BEng was not entirely sufficient to compete in today’ super competitive job market. So, like a large proportion of the graduating population, I found myself trawling through ‘findaphd.com’ and other similar sites to narrow down my options for higher studies.

Coming from an automotive background and with a passion for cars, I intended to stay within the industry rather than transferring to a different sector. After a few days of searching, I stumbled upon the Advanced Automotive Propulsion Systems Centre for Doctoral Training (AAPS CDT) at the University of Bath. I applied to the course having been impressed by the wealth of resources that the CDT had to offer, not to mention the emphasis on transdisciplinary work, and received a prompt reply with an invitation to interview and instructions to complete a some pre work assessments.

The interview itself was split into multiple sections over the course of a half day session.

• An introduction from the management team, and a chance for questions. 
• A personal purpose interview where I went through my personal value assessment, ikigai, future aspirations and my potential role within the CDT.
• Following this was the academic interview where the current and future state of the automotive industry were discussed along with the content of my final year dissertation on battery cooling.
• The final part of the interview was a short presentation with some current students. This final session gave me the opportunity to ask any questions about the structure and content of the course, along with some context on transdisciplinary engineering as it was not something I was exposed to through my bachelors’ degree.

A week after I interviewed, I was offered a place in the 3rd cohort of the AAPS CDT and I started the course in October 2021.

The entire admission process was seamless and efficient and numerous opportunities were given for the new cohort members to meet each other both in person and virtually before arriving.