questions about IE and colleges !

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>Hey guys i am new to the forum and applying to University at Buffalo for Industrial Engineering and i was wondering if Buffalo is good for it. What do you guys think about the major Industrial Engineering? </p>

<p>Is it hard for IE majors to find jobs in 4-6 years?</p>

<p>Is it hard for IE majors to get jobs after they graduate ?</p>

<p>What degrees are the best combo for Industrial Engineering?</p>

<p>What are some colleges/universities do you guys prefer? i am a low income student and i do not have a lot of money to attend prestigious schools for the first four years. I am planning on staying in Buffalo University for a BS in Industrial Engineering and then transfer to a prestigious school for a masters.</p>

<p>I am a transfer student planning to attend Buffalo University with a 3.25 GPA right now and i will most likely bump it to a 3.5 this Spring 2008 term.</p>

<p>Thank you very much for reading this and please post any comments you have. I could not find any other information and i am guessing this site is probably the best.</p>

2

<p>lol... maybe ought to search for "industrial engineering" in past posts before asking this. ;)</p>

<p>What makes you want to go into industrial engineering?</p>

3

<p>I read that Industrial Engineering they plan, control and maintain different types of sectors. I also read that going into industrial engineering you can get into operation management and it just seems more complex over financing and accounting.</p>

4

<p>The problem with industrial engineering is that it's more or less considered a dying field... University programs are being cut, in a lot of cases, and different fields are taking over. As an example, if you want to plan, control, and maintain something in a mechanical engineering-ish sort of field... Like auto manufacturing, or something... Then a popular route is to major in mechanical engineering and then get an MBA to segue into management. I'd recommend going for a more traditional engineering field, where employers are more likely to know what all your curriculum entailed, and then taking business or management classes. Oftentimes, an employer will hire you once you've gotten your engineering degree, and will then pay for you to go back to business school to get your MBA.</p>

<p>What sorts of sectors did you want to plan, control, and maintain?</p>

5

<p>I know the mechanical engineering department at CMU had a concentration in something like supply chain management which required classes in lots of industrial engineering concepts (both my parents are IEs, so I've gotten my share of that stuff without even taking any of the classes :p).</p>

<p>Perhaps you should look at less expensive schools that offer similar programs?</p>

<p>Also, be aware that a lot of prestigious schools don't offer master's stand-alone programs within engineering. Usually you have to enroll for a Ph.D. and will only wind up with a MS if you drop out at some point. Most people I know of that get a master's degree do it as part of a 5 year undergrad program.</p>

6

<p>Re: masters standalone programs...</p>

<p>Hunh. I know that all the schools I applied to for grad school (which were Illinois, GaTech, Texas, MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, and Cornell), save Berkeley, I think, offered standalone masters programs in structural engineering. There are a lot of MEng programs out there, in addition to MS programs... You've got a greater likelihood of getting <em>money</em> for an MS-PhD route, but in my experience, which is admittedly limited to structural and mechanical engineering, there are some pretty prestigious schools out there with standalone masters programs...</p>

<p>(RR- I think Tech's kind of odd-man-out on that one, since most of the folks there pursue more theoretical degrees)</p>

7

<p>Practically every school offers a MS standalone program. Which ones are you thinking of that don't offer it?</p>

8

<p>aibarr and others,</p>

<p>would you consider OR a dying field or a growing field?</p>

9

<p>hey thanks for help guys and i was interested in the manufacturings or production section. However i still do not know, but i want a field that will give me a great future. I do have an interest in the auto industry.</p>

<p>So now i am guessing Operations Research is also a useless and dying field too right? </p>

<p>If i do the mechanical engineering route with a MBA, will their be jobs/internships available?</p>

<p>Thanks for all your help guys
Eric</p>

10

<p>Isn't operations research under IE? I've always seen it lumped in with industrial engineering, and I've never seen an independent OR department. I really don't have enough familiarity with it as an independent degree program to say one way or another, but the fact that I haven't heard of anyone going into it doesn't bode particularly well...</p>

<p>And Eric, there're plenty of jobs and internships for mechanical engineers! It might be a little difficult to get an internship during your freshman or sophomore year, as is true for all engineering majors (not enough experience to really be able to help out at a company) but if you start befriending professors and offering up your time for research, you'll gain experience pretty quickly. If I had it to do over again, I'd start looking for some research experience as soon as I got to college (I didn't turn out too badly, though =P).</p>

11

<p>I was looking at civil engineering and it looks similar to Industrial engineering, is that also a dying field? I also like the work type of civil engineering more over mechanical engineering. I was doing research about all the other engineerings and it seems like they have to stick to something particular. </p>

<p>Can you guys help me decide a good major =/ </p>

<p>Thanks
Eric</p>

12

<p>
[quote]
The problem with industrial engineering is that it's more or less considered a dying field...

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I actually completely disagree that it's dying. If anything, it is growing faster than the average occupation.</p>

<p>And it's not only me saying so. The BLS agrees:</p>

<p>"Industrial engineers are expected to have employment growth of 20 percent over the projections decade, faster than the average for all occupations. "</p>

<p><a href="http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm#emply%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm#emply&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>
[quote]
So now i am guessing Operations Research is also a useless and dying field too right?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>No, it is not. Again, I quote the BLS:</p>

<p>"Employment of operations research analysts is expected to grow 11 percent, as fast as the average for all occupations between 2006 and 2016."</p>

<p><a href="http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos044.htm#outlook%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos044.htm#outlook&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>What I would say is happening is that many of the old jobs in IE/OR are declining. For example, many of the old-line manufacturing plants in the US, which hired a lot of IE/OR people, are being mothballed. </p>

<p>But simultaneously, new fields are opening to IE/OR, the most obvious being the supply chain/procurement/distribution/transportation jobs. For example, as more components and goods are being imported from overseas, IE/OR experts will be needed who know where to efficiently ship and warehouse these products. Do you move components by boat or by plane? If by boat, then which shipping lane and to which port,and does that port have adequate unloading and warehousing capacity. And then how are you going to take those components for final assembly (if necessary) and then transport them to the end-customer? Not only do regular retailers such as Walmart need to worry about this (and hence hire plenty of IE/OR people), but also specialized shipping companies such as FedEx and UPS. </p>

<p>The service industry now also hires numerous IE/OR people. For example, take Internet service companies such as Google. That company has to worry about how, when and where to provision enough servers to handle flash mobs, while worrying about data center capacity and cooling requirements. Every Internet company would like to find ways to run their data centers more efficiently. One can also even consider entertainment companies. Disney, I have heard, hires IE/OR people to choreograph Disneyland rides, concessions, and distractions to provide a quality experience to its patrons (for example, Disney will strategically position certain rides next to other rides in order to minimize lines, and when the lines get really long and people get frustrated, that's when Disney will have scheduled a parade of Disney characters to serve as an entertaining distraction). </p>

<p>But the point is, I completely disagree that IE/OR are dying and useless fields. If anything, I would say that they're actually better off than the mechanical engineers. </p>

<p>Again, to quote the BLS:</p>

<p>"Mechanical engineers are projected to have 4 percent employment growth over the projections decade, slower than the average for all occupations. This is because total employment in manufacturing industries—in which employment of mechanical engineers is concentrated—is expected to decline."</p>

<p><a href="http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm#outlook%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm#outlook&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

13

<p>1) No, civil engineering is a rapidly growing field, and it rocks, you should join ;)</p>

<p>2) Sakky, would you say that going into industrial engineering (and dealing with the endless mocking) would be a better route than using a business degree plus an engineering degree to get where you want to go...? I'm a little skeptical. Very few successful managers I know of took the former route, and I see many companies pushing for their engineers to take the latter route. I don't even really see industrial engineering acknowledged in the industry, and I get the impression that the industrial engineers we see of today are actually engineers of a different flavor, trained in the former ways of the industrial engineer.</p>

14

<p>
[quote]
2) Sakky, would you say that going into industrial engineering (and dealing with the endless mocking)

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I seem to have heard of quite a bit of mocking of other engineering majors as well. For example, EE/computer-engineers/computer-scientists are widely stereotyped as antisocial nerds who don't shower and can't get dates. Frankly, there's some truth in that assessment, as if you happen to go to one of the computer labs at MIT or Berkeley at around midnight, you will see guys there who couldn't get a date to save their lives and who are far more comfortably in interacting with computers than with other people. Similarly, chemical engineers are often times mocked as little more than glorified plumbers (and interestingly enough, it is often times other chemical engineers who are doing the mocking). </p>

<p>
[quote]
would be a better route than using a business degree plus an engineering degree to get where you want to go...?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>That's not the question on the table. Or, at least, that's not what I see as the question on the table. The OP never asked about getting a business degree plus an engineering degree. The OP simply asked about the value of an IE degree, and presumably the point of comparison was to some other standalone engineering degree, and not to an engineering degree plus a business degree.</p>

<p>Nevertheless, let me deal now with that point. Would a non-IE engineering degree plus a business degree (presumably an MBA) be highly useful? Sure, but no more so than an IE degree plus an MBA. The truth is, once you get an MBA, your undergrad degree fades in importance, particularly if your MBA comes from an elite B-school. For example, if you get an MBA from Harvard Business School, nobody is going to care what you did in undergrad. </p>

<p>
[quote]
Very few successful managers I know of took the former route, and I see many companies pushing for their engineers to take the latter route.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Like I said, the fair comparison is between a guy with just an IE degree vs. a guy with just an ME degree. If anything, I strongly suspect that the former is more likely to eventually become a manager. After all, the IE guy is more likely to spend more time on management related projects and roles, which therefore prepares him to eventually be promoted, whereas the ME guy will often times be shunted into purely technical roles with little opportunity to learn management techniques. Sure, the ME guy can eventually get an MBA and become a manager. But so can the IE guy. </p>

<p>
[quote]
I don't even really see industrial engineering acknowledged in the industry,

[/quote]
</p>

<p>The BLS disagrees: IE is the 4th largest engineering subcategory. Notice how it is also projected to have the 3rd highest job growth rate of all engineering categories (behind biomedical and environmental). </p>

<p><a href="http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm#projections_data%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm#projections_data&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>If any engineering disciplines are not being acknowledged, it would be ones like agricultural engineering. Or mining engineering. Or marine engineers. Now, those engineering disciplines truly are niches.</p>

15

<p>Well, that's not really my point, at all... I should probably clarify...</p>

<p>Though I majored in civil engineering, I'm a structural engineer.
Though a lot of people majored in mechanical engineering or electrical engineering or what have you, they're industrial engineers.</p>

<p>The question at hand, precipitated by the OP's original question and my subsequent opinion and <em>your</em> subsequent opinion after that, is whether or not it's the best plan to <em>major</em> in industrial engineering if you want to <em>be</em> a successful industrial engineer. Thoughts?</p>

16

<p>There are so many misconceptions about IE, it's almost ridiculous. As an ISE I pretty much ignore it all because it's just too tiring to explain to everyone. In my ISE department, there aren't too many people looking for jobs with the title Industrial Engineer. Most people are looking to go into consulting and things like that. It's viewed as a major that integrates business and engineering, and with it comes a lot of versatility.</p>

<p>It's not a dying field at all. Yes it may be more impressive to have that EE degree (Intel rep told me they absolutely loved EEs, but I also talked to another Intel rep who himself was an ISE), but it's not hard to find a job with an ISE degree. Going into this year I had absolutely no work experience, I landed an internship with a large retailer's logistical department at a distribution center. Distribution is growing in importance as manufacturing moves overseas, so there are going to be a lot of great jobs there. Plus as an ISE you can pretty much pick the industry you want to work in, since every single major industry hires ISE grads.</p>

<p>Maybe the reason why ISE gets such a bad rep from other engineers is because the course material is generally easier than other engineering majors, but ISEs are rewarded similarly. </p>

<p>As far as OR goes I'm taking my first OR class right now and it's pretty sweet.. Very applicable to real world situations.</p>

17

<p>Shweet, gatorjacket! Thanks for the first-hand account; that's really informative and helpful.</p>

<p>Where are the good industrial engineering departments located? I really don't have familiarity with any schools with ISE departments, and everything I'd ever been told about industrial engineering hadn't ever been refuted by anybody, so I just went with it and incorporated my own personal experience, which until now hasn't involved any industrial engineers.</p>

<p>(Keep speaking up! It took me forever to convince people around here that civil engineering wasn't the "easy major"! =P )</p>

18

<p>Cool thanks for help aibarr, Sakky and gatorjacket. I felt bad when i thought Industrial Engineering was a horrible major but after reading that i feel great about it.</p>

<p>Sakky and gatorjacket, what do you guys think is the best combo for Industrial Engineering for making money? is it BS Industrial Engineering with a MBA in Supply chain/operations management or BS Industrial Engineering with a MS Operation research. Are there combos better than this?</p>

<p>Thanks for help
Eric</p>

19

<p>
[quote]
The question at hand, precipitated by the OP's original question and my subsequent opinion and <em>your</em> subsequent opinion after that, is whether or not it's the best plan to <em>major</em> in industrial engineering if you want to <em>be</em> a successful industrial engineer. Thoughts?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Again, I don't think that is the question at hand, although I invite the OP to clarify. From reading his posts, I see that the OP asked only about the IE major, but not about the IE job title *specifically. In fact, the OP also asked about how the IE major can allow him to enter operations management which seems to indicate to me that he is more interested than just the IE *job title. </p>

<p>Now to your point, it is certainly true that many non-IE graduates will obtain jobs with IE job titles. But it is also true that many IE graduates will get jobs with other titles. Another poster mentioned the ability of IE students to enter management/strategy consulting, and this is certainly a quite popular and, I daresay, a highly lucrative and career-accelerating option. </p>

<p>IE grads can also work as 'regular' engineers. As a case in point, take the downstream oil industry, which is traditionally the provenance of chemical engineers. Many oil companies do not hire people for 'chemical engineer' job titles per se, but rather hire for 'process engineers', and while many process engineers were chemical engineering students, others are not. IE students can and do get hired into these roles. Sure, ChemE's know details regarding thermodynamics, separations processes, heat transfer, and other such topics that the IE's don't know. But, frankly, you don't need to know very much about those topics to be a process engineer as you're not actually designing any new refinery equipment or trying to come up with a method of engineering an entirely new chemical reaction. {In other words, most process engineer jobs are not research/design jobs.} Both the equipment and the underlying chemical reactions are very well understood and characterized and were probably designed years ago (indeed, many of the chemical operations in a refinery are the same as they were 25 years ago). The real question is then how do you maximize system utilization and minimize wait/hold-times, as even a 1% improvement in yield in a modern refinery can easily translate into millions of dollars in profit, and these are topics that IE students know more than ChemE's. Hence, they both have something valuable to contribute.</p>

20

<p>
[quote]
Where are the good industrial engineering departments located?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Personally, I suspect this is where part of IE's "bad rap" comes from. Many of the 'best' IE departments don't really call themselves IE or even have a specific IE discipline, but rather have been incorporated into other departments. </p>

<p>Take MIT. Many of the most prominent IE professors who have some of the most cited publications in the entire IE field are at MIT. But MIT doesn't have a standalone "IE" department. Rather, IE is run out of the MIT Sloan School of Management as part of the 'Management Science' program. But regardless of the name, it's IE. Similarly, Stanford is also a highly respected IE school that doesn't call its department "IE". Rather, Stanford calls it the "Management Science & Engineering" department. </p>

<p>But it's just a name. To quote Shakespeare: "What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet" Whether you want to call it IE or operations management or operations research or management science or systems engineering or anything else, it's all basically the same thing. </p>

<p>
[quote]
Sakky and gatorjacket, what do you guys think is the best combo for Industrial Engineering for making money? is it BS Industrial Engineering with a MBA in Supply chain/operations management or BS Industrial Engineering with a MS Operation research. Are there combos better than this?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Well, heh heh, if you have read other threads of mine, I will say that the best way to make money as an engineering student is to either join/found a startup firm (where the risks are high but the potential reward is immense), or to enter the world of high finance (i.e. at an investment bank, hedge fund, venture capital firm, etc.). Many of the top students at the top engineering schools take one of these choices. </p>

<p>But if we are restricted to only the 2 choices you have put forth, it's difficult to say because the outcome hinges very strongly on which program you will get your MBA or MS from. For example, I would say that obtaining your MBA from Harvard or MIT will earn you significantly more money than obtaining an MS in operations research, even if that is from MIT (and yes, MIT does offer an MS specifically in operations research). On the other hand, a top-flight MS in ops will be clearly more lucrative than a mediocre MBA. In fact, I would go so far as to guesstimate that an average MS in ops will be more lucrative than an average MBA, simply because there are a lot of low-quality MBA programs out there that pull down the average. I don't think there are as many low-quality MS ops programs.</p>