<p>My 11th grader is thinking about pursuing design and that leads us to Industrial Engineering as an option but I'm wondering if there are other majors that she should explore. She is on the 'build team' of her school's robotics team and is very much a math/science student so engineering certainly could be the way to go. Her sister (sophmore in college) is a civil and environmental engineer so we do have general information about majoring in engineering. </p>
<p>She isn't sure what type of design...definitely not graphic or architecture and she's not an artist by any stretch. </p>
<p>The main reason I'm asking now is that she has a February break and we're going to look at schools and being able to search by major will help us identify possible schools. At this point, I can only think of industrial engineering but it seems like there are probably multiple ways to study design.</p>
<p>Stanford has a Product Design major that is part of their mechanical engineering program. It’s very hands on. I know several recent grads who’ve gone on to interesting and engaging design related careers right out of school.</p>
<p>Ditto for Stanford Product Design. I did Industrial Design in college and Stanford’s program fits the needs of where this field is going. If Stanford is a reach, look for programs that parallel what they are teaching although that will be hard to find. Note: Industrial Engineering as a college major is not Industrial Design nor Product Design -make sure you investigate the difference.</p>
<p>Human Computer Interaction or Human Machine Interaction involves lots of ‘design’ work (not the artsy type) plus engineering. In some schools it’s part of Industrial Engineering (as it was in my case at Purdue) so look for good IE programs with sub-programs in HMI / HCI / Product Design / et. al. In other schools it is part of Computer Science, and in some it could even be part of Cognitive Sciences. But it’s a fair assumption that it involves components from IE, CS, and CogSci.</p>
<p>HCI / HMI people design the user interfaces of stuff you buy and use every day. At some point some ‘design’ work is done that involves wireframe or other basic drawing using specialized software, but actual design work does not take a big part of the work (as it would with architecture, graphic design, or industrial design). There’s also lots of customer interaction, running user clinics and usability studies, data analysis, comparative evaluations, and the like. </p>
<p>Schools good in HCI / HMI would be Purdue (had to include that :)), Georgia Tech (awesome), CMU, MIT (Media Lab, 'nuff said), and so on - there’s not very many of them to begin with so start with grad program rankings and chances are the undergrad programs will be just as strong. </p>
<p>There’s also a few regional type schools that for some reason or another have strong programs (Wright State in Dayton Ohio, where HCI/HMI work for the USAF is done).</p>
<p>Edit: the Stanford Product Design (as mentioned by fellow posters above) is another option in the same lines but interestingly enough includes a healthy dose of Mechanical Engineering.</p>
<p>Even if the school it not of interest…the programs listed may give an idea of the type of things that can be studied and the professions they might lead to.</p>
<p>NC State University College of Design. Well respected. Admittance is competitive.
S1’s friend came from Iowa to NCSU just for the design program. There is also a study abroad program. S1’s friend spent a semester in Prague. </p>
<p>NCSU also has a respected engineering school that offers Industrial Engineering (plus all the other Eng. majors). </p>
<p>Virginia Tech has very well regarded programs in Industrial and Systems Engineering, Industrial Design, and Architecture. A joint effort by the schools,Lumenhaus,won an international award.
Son is currently there in Industrial Engineering and did have a Human Factors course as an undergrad. There are courses in all that at the graduate level. Industrial design seems to involve math, computer aided design,etc.
[Industrial</a> & Systems Engineering | Virginia Tech](<a href=“http://www.ise.vt.edu%5DIndustrial”>http://www.ise.vt.edu)
[id@vt[/url</a>]
[url=<a href=“http://www.lumenhaus.com%5DVirginia”>http://www.lumenhaus.com]Virginia</a> Tech Lumenhaus](<a href=“http://www.industrialdesign.arch.vt.edu]id@vt%5B/url”>http://www.industrialdesign.arch.vt.edu)
Good luck!</p>
<p>Industrial Engineering is more how to manufacture a product most effeciently, or process and product flows (think UPS and how to make sure the package gets there on time). Mechanical Engineering is more design focused.</p>
<p>gsmomma, A UPS type of job you describe is only one type of job that an IE can do. That is a narrow view,however.(see also turbo93’s post).
[Human</a> Factors Engineering and Ergonomics | Industrial and Systems Engineering | Virginia Tech](<a href=“http://www.ise.vt.edu/GraduatePrograms/PhD/Human_Factors_Ergonomics/HFEE_index.html]Human”>http://www.ise.vt.edu/GraduatePrograms/PhD/Human_Factors_Ergonomics/HFEE_index.html)
Lots of options at both undergrad and graduate level. My kid had a science and technology internship with a consulting firm this summer and now has a permanent job offer from them after graduation. Industrial and Systems engineers seem to have good options these days with varied types of employment opportunities. Mechanical , I’m sure , has good options as well.</p>
<p>What sevmom said… IE has a bunch of specialty areas, from manufacturing systems, to cognitive science, human factors, process optimization, simulation, CIM, etc. Both Mrs. Turbo and I attended Purdue and while we both were in Industrial Engineering our programs were quite divergent… She had more of the manufacturing / operations / plant rat type classes while I had more of the cognitive science, human factors, and so on classes. Very fun programs both. </p>
<p>For example, one can use some very mind-boggling and for many people boring to tears methods to analyze an existing design (say, task analysis…) or use their knowledge to design something from scratch.</p>
<p>Check out “industrial design” at University of Illinois and other schools. Focuses on product design – more heavily on the design than the engineering/manufacturing side.
On the other hand, industrial engineering majors (esp those with business or economics coursework as well) are highly employable.</p>
<p>Olin College (just outside Boston) is a small school that totally redesigned the engineering curriculum to make it more hands-on and to do design early. </p>
<p>They really only have 3 majors: Electrical & Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Engineering. The generic Engineering major has several different concentration possibilities.</p>
<p>University of Michigan - they have a good engineering school, and I think they often win for their solar car design. Here’s a link: [About</a> Us | University of Michigan Solar Car Team](<a href=“http://solarcar.engin.umich.edu/about-us/]About”>http://solarcar.engin.umich.edu/about-us/). That might be something she’s interested in. We saw them building a car at Brown too.</p>