Industrial Engineering/Operations Research as major or minor?

<p>Hi CC:
I am now caught in a dilemma. I am now studying at science in a Quebec CEGEP and is graduating soon. I am considering material engineering as a major, but I also found Industrial Engineering quite interesting. I am really torn in between and cannot decide. Moreover, my parents are giving me some BS lecture about girls being not suitable for engineering; I do, however, prefer to work at offices (or labs) rather than out at plants and factories, and the idea of keeping learning and trying to keep up after graduating really frustrates me. That being said, my other option is to major in Operations Research. </p>

<p>In brief, I would love to know which of the following is the best option:
1) major in material science and take OR as a minor
2) major in industrial science
3) major in OR</p>

<p>I have a 95 average, and I am particularly good at calculus.</p>

<p>Thanks in advance!</p>

<p>I am an Industrial Engineering major and am in school with plenty of girls that are really good. Many have internships/coops with BMW & Disney. I am about to start an internship at a fortune 300 in a few days and it is definitely an office job. Every once in a while we go out to collect data but most work in done in the office setting. If you never bring your gender into the equation it should never be an issue. Your parents seem to be lost in a different age. I am 31 and that seems to be extremely old fashioned even for me.</p>

<p>Hi Chucktown, thx for replying. The university that I wanna go to (since I don’t want to move just yet) doesnt offer IE major. Does Eng.B with a minor in OR open up more opportunities? I’m really interested in OR courses.</p>

<p>Do you have to decide before you start school? I’m not familiar with that program you’re in. </p>

<p>In my experience OR doesn’t really use calculus. In a non-linear programming class there might be some but as a rule the field isn’t calculus heavy compared to other engineering majors. I don’t know much about MatSci but as far as I can tell it’s completely different than OR in almost every way other than the fact that they both use math to some degree. It’s hard to tell you what to do, you have to figure it out for yourself.</p>