Operations/Supply Chain Management or Industrial/Systems Engineering

College Majors Business Major
1

<p>I am a high school senior, and I wanted some advice on what I should major in. I am interested in designing the most efficient systems for maximum productivity/profit for businesses, or more generally something along the lines of considering all factors of a problem and solving it efficiently and effectively, especially for how a business produces its goods or services. I am not sure what major this exactly is, but I've heard that industrial/systems engineering or operations/supply chain management sounds about right for this. What I am not interested in is predicting or making theories about investments or stocks.</p>

<p>I want to follow a career path where I work for a company after my undergraduate doing the things mentioned above, and I want a decent starting pay so I can go to grad school. I really don't know much about the specifics of majors, but a degree in management/business is usually in a different school than a degree in engineering at most universities right? So I would have to choose in my freshman application.</p>

<p>If I were to be accepted to UVA and Georgia Tech for example, and after graduating I want to do the things I listed above as my interests for a company, would I be better off to go to The School of Arts and Sciences at UVA and hopefully get accepted into and earn a degree in management from the Mcintire School of Commerce, or major in industrial engineering from Georgia Tech? Which degree would be better for me getting a job for a company to do the things I mentioned as my interests? In general, is a management degree from a very good business school like Mcintire, Wharton, or Ross better than a degree in industrial engineering from a great engineering school like Georgia Tech, UIUC, or UMich?</p>

<p>I know that industrial/systems engineering and supply chain/operations management are closely related, and I guess I don't know which is better to undergraduate in for my interests/career path.
I would be torn between
UVA Mcintire vs. Georgia Tech Engineering vs. UIUC Engineering vs. VTech Engineering vs. Wharton vs. Ross School of Business vs. UMich Engineering etc.</p>

<p>Thanks for reading all of this, it's my first post so please tell me if I'm doing anything wrong or if this is the wrong forum.</p>

2

<p>There have been a few threads about this before:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/engineering-majors/991991-industrial-engineering-vs-supply-chain-management.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/engineering-majors/991991-industrial-engineering-vs-supply-chain-management.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/business-major/1050555-supply-chain-management-vs-industrial-engineering.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/business-major/1050555-supply-chain-management-vs-industrial-engineering.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/business-major/1037554-supply-chain-management-vs-infustrial-engineering.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/business-major/1037554-supply-chain-management-vs-infustrial-engineering.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/business-major/991989-supply-chain-management-vs-industrial-engineering.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/business-major/991989-supply-chain-management-vs-industrial-engineering.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>In general, SCM is more “big picture” and global, while industrial engineering is more pragmatic and local. An example of this would be SCM people would have to decide where to put a new distribution center and where position the inventory across the distribution network, while the industrial engineers would decide how to actually design the new facility. </p>

<p>Which one you should chose depends on what you want to do. The way you described your interests is a little vague.</p>

<p>If you want to do SCM/operations management, I probably wouldn’t go to a school like Ross or Mcintire. I can speak about Ross specifically. Over 80% of Ross grads go into finance, marketing, or consulting. Of those areas, 44.4% went into finance. Ross also doesn’t have any majors within the school (pretty sure Mcintire is the same way). It’s a general BBA program that exists to get kids jobs in investment banking and management consulting, not operations jobs.</p>