<p>My university offers the course in my program only once a semester. From my credits, I'm a semester ahead in industrial engineering. I'm coming up to completing my general engineering courses in my department and have to get on schedule leaving me with a semester of no courses lined up. </p>
<p>What should I take? I was thinking perhaps some business classes, but business is so general...what business class would it be? I have considered studying abroad for a semester...sort of like a "gap year" but not really. Is a co-op a good option...I'm unsure if companies take co-ops from sophomores. Are REUs semester long? </p>
<p>I just need something that won't be a waste of my time, that would add to my resume/talents/strengths, and would be intriguing. </p>
<p>First and foremost, I would try to find a CO-OP. If you can’t, than I would see about doing some undergraduate research… talk to some of your professors about the research they are involved in.</p>
<p>In terms of classes, the three subjects I think every engineer should be familiar with are:</p>
<p>Engineering economics (NPV etc.)
Statistics (applied if you can find it, using R/Matlab etc.)
Programming</p>
<p>Thank you, noleguy for the feedback. </p>
<p>I’ll take a look at some co-ops. Do you know how the co-op process generally works? Would it be likely for me to get a co-op for the spring from an early September meeting with a company? Or are co-ops usually set up earlier than that?</p>
<p>As for classes, unfortunately, I’ve taken economics and statistics, but I will look into programming. </p>
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<p>Wouldn’t these all be required courses for an industrial engineering major anyway? However, additional CS courses of the kind that CS majors take may be helpful.</p>
<p>Yes, doing a co-op job in the semester where there are not that many course offerings you can take makes sense. Check your school’s career center for how to search for co-op jobs.</p>
<p>For a business class, I would suggest accounting. No matter what you do in life, you have to know what is going on with the money.</p>
<p>I am also in IE and one of the best business classes I have ever taken was SCM 301- Principles of Supply Management. It is an easy class, interesting and more related to other IE classes than I ever thought.</p>
<p>We dealt with a lot of interesting topics + PERT diagrams. I saw PERT diagrams again in IE-271- Ergonomics and Work Design, so it is not a waste of time</p>
<p>I do not recommend Engineering Economics though- it is already a requirement for most IE programs. I have a degree in Econ and at least here at Iowa State, this class is horrendous.</p>
<p>A course in programming(VBA Macro) is already required by most IE programs as well as a Statistics course.</p>
<p>
Yes, all of those classes are already required, although I will have completed them by the end of this semester. </p>
<p>Suggested Classes:
Programming
Accounting
Some supply focused business class</p>
<p>@bschoolwiz I was waiting for you to comment in here! Mainly, because I knew you were in industrial engineering. 
There’s no getting around engineering economics at my school. CoE pushes is to its death. They don’t except transfer credit or anything. You must take it with them.</p>