<p>Hi,
I am a senior in high school and I am very interested in Human Factors Engineering as a possible major next year and a career choice. For a lot of the schools that I am applying to, human factors starts as an undergraduate in industrial engineering and then after this, you go on to do a specialized graduate's degree. </p>
<p>One of the main reasons why I am so interested in human factors engineering is because I love design and art and I feel like it is a good mix of creativity that involves science. I absolutely love the idea of being an industrial designer, but I want a job with a little more grit and stability. Is there anyone here who can tell me a little more about what a human factor specialist would do on a daily basis? I am worried (especially because the whole undergraduate degree is in industrial engineering) that I would never get to design ergonomic products.
Also, from what I have experienced, I am not very interested in the whole human-computer interaction kind of thing.</p>
<p>If there are any suggestions, tips, or advice on this field (as I have a hard time finding much info) I would absolutely love to hear it.
Thanks!</p>
<p>Well, if you are only interested in Ergonomics/ Human Factors, I don’t think you will be very happy getting an IE degree. There is absolutely nothing artistic about the IE curriculum and the only course I took on Ergonomics/Work Design was very basic, not in depth at all.</p>
<p>If you are more of a creative, artsy person, I think you will be miserable taking classes on Specifications and Tolerances, Optimization and Stochastic Models.</p>
<p>I think a degree in Industrial Design would probably be more suitable but I know very little about this area.</p>
<p>Thank you to bsschoolwiz and zapfino for the excellent information!</p>
<p>I agree that maybe industrial engineering may not be too thrilling for me but I do like math and science in addition to art, so it’s a tough decision…
Industrial design sounds great, I just wish it wasn’t so completely art focused. </p>
<p>Does anyone know the difference between the types of jobs/salaries an engineer focused in human factors gets vs a psychologist in human factors gets?</p>
You can approach HF from the computer science side, the graphics/creative side, the psychology side, or the IE side. With a bit of luck you could mix enough electives in your cauldron and get a degree…
My guess is you’ll need to know two of the four areas minimum. That has worked well for me (CS + IE, but I know enough of the psych and graphics parts too). Depending on where you go to school, IE could have all kinds of useful classes, Usability Engineering or Analysis, Job Design, Product Safety, Product Liability…
Nowdays people separate User Experience and User Interaction, and it really depends what you want to do. I design user interfaces for complex consumer electronics, for example. I wear both hats, design as well as write code.
Depending on your stats and financials there’s some pretty awesome schools out there. Career wise, a lot of people are spilling over into marketing campaigns and stuff, or other interactive media type work. There is work out there but a lot of it seems to be smaller companies, as large companies like ours have their own staff or outsource / contract out work. I would definitely keep programming in the picture.
The IE degree is important because you’re an engineer, with the math and science that comes with it. The psychology, you can do it as a minor. It really depends on your primary focus (CS + graphic design for example, I had a guy like that working with me and he was like out of this world good in HTML+CSS…).