<p>i'm looking to go to school at USC or Duke. at USC, i'll be doing industrial engineering, at Duke I can't do that. What am I really giving up?</p>
<p>Duke looks like it only has Mechanical, EE, Biomedical and Civil? Unless you are sure one of those interests you I'd look elsewhere. You'd be missing out on chances to major in Operations Research/Industrial Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, and "hybrid" fields like Computer Engineering or Engineering Physics. If you don't know what you want to major in it doesn't make sense to limit yourself like so.</p>
<p>Industrial engineering is much easier than those "old guard" engineering and is not nearly as technical. It is more of a management degree. But still, MEs compete regularly with IEs for the same entry level engineering jobs...</p>
<p>I can't imagine its really that much easier, especially at a place like USC. It might not be as mathematically complicated, but they'll make up for that some other way. In the end though, does it really matter? I can't imagine someone doing EE would hate ME or vis versa. Since I don't even know that I want to do IE, is passing up that option for a school I might otherwise like better really a good decision? Would it be possible for me to like that engineering and dislike the others to enough of a degree that I wasn't happy?</p>
<p>as a trojan, we EE ppl really think IE is so easy to a point it shouldn't belong in engineering school. Moreover, ppl generally do not have too much respect for IE, the difficulity level of IE is nowhere near traditional engr major and they don't make up for some other way. Also, in USC, IE is the major other than business for engineering students who can't survive or got weed out from other much tougher engr majors.</p>
<p>Yeah. That's my impression as well. Simply put, the technical complexity is just not in the same league as the others.</p>
<p>I don't think that and I'm ECE, auscguy. Sure, a lot of ORIE people here are only in that because they didn't want to work as hard as other engineers, but there are also plenty of them that legitimately enjoy the course material. I'm hoping to have room in my schedule for some ORIE courses down the line because they can be very interesting, IMO (game theory, optimization, stochastic processes, etc).</p>
<p>But thierryhenry, you do realize that "engineering" is a ridiculously broad term, right? No one "hates" any of the other disciplines but I sure as hell wouldn't want to be a chemical engineer or mechanical engineer or materials scientist. </p>
<p>As an industrial engineer you aren't going to be designing things, per say. It's more like theoretical, quantitative management. The people that create major sports schedules (NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, you name it) are often industrial engineers. People that work in supply chain management, as financial analysts, as systems engineers would often be considered industrial engineers.</p>
<p>And sure, you shouldn't pass it up. Duke only offers 4 engineering majors, which would be really limiting to someone who is entering as an undecided engineering major. USC is a very strong engineering school and would offer a much larger array of possible majors within its school of engineering.</p>
<p>OR can be just as rigorous, quantitative, and difficult as any other engineering major. When you get deep into a nonlinear optimization problem, or a tough stochastic thing like a partially-observed Markov decision process, you'll be doing as much math as any other engineer. In fact, if you throw in the extensive use of modern non-parametric statistics that many OR programs include, OR majors earn their higher salaries.</p>
<p>As a field, OR is well over 60 years old. It's odd to refer to it as 'new' (as opposed to the 'old guard' engineering fields).</p>
<p>IE can be rigorous in material. However, I tend to think the curve is easier the students are below the other majors (especially the computer focused majors). At a few select colleges this might not be the case (Princeton/MIT) - but I doubt it in all but a few.</p>
<p>Actually, OR is a computer-focused major. I'm working with software and coding all the time. It's just that we see the computer as a means to an end and not an end in itself.</p>
<p>this is mainly directed at auscguy and live-. I'm looking to get an undergraduate degree in engineering, and probably an MBA after that. I don't plan on being a practicing engineer all that long, I just think undergraduate business programs are basically a waste of time and the technical background would be nice to have. I am good at math, I'm taking calc II this year and just took the BC test and will probably get a 4, but i'm not amazing. I got a 34 on my ACT, I can hang in there with the big guys, but barely. I don't belong at MIT or Caltech. I'm a huge fan of problem solving, but not neccesarily in science only. I like lab sciences, especially the lab part, but I also took and liked writing 121 this year at my high school, which is college freshman writing. I was on our school's constitution team, we got third in teh nation. I spent most of my academic time doing that this year. I'm certainly not the physics-math junky. Do I even belong in engineering? is there a reason industrial and its less technical, more business oriented curriculum sounds so nice?</p>
<p>I would choose IE over business any time. If u think u will like it, go for it. That what matters the most. Good luck!</p>
<p>If you are interested in business then DEFINITELY consider Operations Research/Industrial Engineering. You are going to be studying mainly classes in whatever major you choose so you may as well like it or learn something that you want to practice afterwards, and a background in OR/IE would be very good for a career in business.</p>
<p>thanks. auscguy, how easy would it be for me to transfer to USC from Duke if i didnt like it?</p>
<p>I think it is not too difficult as long as you have at least 3.0 from Duke, but that's just my opinion</p>
<p>fair enough. any more thoughts on industrial? how is it greeted by employers, especially when coupled with an MBA?</p>
<p>bump…</p>
<p>“how is it greeted by employers”</p>
<p>especially in the business/consulting side?</p>
<p>IE is nicknamed “imaginary engineering”, but it is a very broad field. What gives it a bad reputation are subfields such as designing user interfaces and writing technical documentation. However, its tougher focuses are just as hard as anything else, basically applied math with lots of probability.</p>
<p>according to Columbia, IEOR is greeted well by employers in business/consulting side: </p>
<p>[url=<a href=“http://cap.cs.columbia.edu/john/IEOR_Video/IEOR_videoplayer.html]IEOR_videoplayer[/url”>http://cap.cs.columbia.edu/john/IEOR_Video/IEOR_videoplayer.html]IEOR_videoplayer[/url</a>]</p>
<p>IMHO, as long as you graduate from one of the top ten schools with an IEOR or any engin degrees, you shouldn’t have any trouble landing a business/consulting job.</p>