<p>??? Does it make it less in demand? I don't get why people take a shot at it, how does it matter? the pay is similar, there is actually a lot of opportunity and growth 20 percent from 2006-2016 according to BLS. but anyways can someone elaborate more about why it is "easier"?</p>
<p>anyone that thinks IE is easy needs to sit in on a stochastic optimization class.</p>
<p>More or less I think that it’s because there are a number of IE classes that aren’t extremely technical. However, I have yet to meet anybody who says they’ve taken an easy linear programming or stoch methods class.</p>
<p>because if purduefrank can do it anyone can ;)</p>
<p>Also, because of all the ice cream.</p>
<p>i don’t know, maybe because the program is designed to be less demanding on the student?</p>
<p>(i don’t actually know if this is true or not)</p>
<p>it is true that certain programs ask more from their students than others. To deny it (ice cream anyone?) is a serious act of wishful thinking. it doesn’t really make for polite conversation though . . . also a program being more difficult doesn’t necessarily make it more worthwhile.</p>
<p>the curriculum in IE is composed of general engineering + business/management; so it is ‘softer’.
at my school they go by the name ‘imaginary engineers’…but it’s all good fun</p>
<p>according to BLS there are about 201,000 industrial engineers in America. DO all of them have industrial engineering degrees? Because I met a lot of engineers but have yet to meet an industrial engineer. Can an electrical or mechanical engineer essentially become an industrial engineer as well? Because I heard there are few schools that offer an industrial engineering degree. I think I read somewhere here that it was 23 schools that offered it. The numbers just don’t seem to be right.</p>
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<p>yessir… </p>
<p>One word: un-elite
His uncle: doesn’t make more money than you
His SAT: lower than yours
His major: easier than yours</p>
<p>How does he do it all you ask? Strategically, like a consultant lurking in the background…</p>
<p>There should be more than 23 schools… Small Privates and Publics also offer IE undergrad. In the state of Iowa I can say there are around 10 universities that offer IE but only 2 that offer other fields like EE, Mech E Civil etc…</p>
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<p>You see a huge variation between programs. Some IE programs are designed to be Operations Management (business) with calculus. Other IE programs are designed to be hard-core CS/Math hybrids. And some really aren’t engineering (ergonomics, anyone?). </p>
<p>A chemical engineer is a chemical engineer regardless of what school he went to; the quality of the programs and level of rigor are different, but the basic ideas covered are the same. Industrial engineering is not the same way. When someone tells you she’s an IE, you immediately ask what school she attended, not to be pretentious, but to get an idea what sort of industrial engineer she is.</p>
<p>But my point still stands - anyone that thinks IE is easier can sit in a stochastic optimization program. I’ve got graduate degrees from top universities in “real” engineering fields, and Stochastic Optimization is 5 times more difficult than anything I’ve seen at any level (including PhD chemical engineering).</p>
<p>GP</p>
<p>I’m curious as to what you think about Purdue’s IE program? Ergonomics has crept its way into our curriculum despite my lack of enthusiasm…</p>
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<p>verrry sneaky</p>
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<p>Production and Manufacturing with some emphasis OR and Statistics. There’s not a whole lot of supply chain or econometrics, from what I’ve seen. Overall I hear it’s an excellent program.</p>
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<p>I know why IE’s get stuck with ergonomics, but ergonomics is not something an IE should be doing, and it’s not engineering. Most people (and companies) do not realize that there’s an entire field called Industrial Hygiene that studies (among other things) ergonomics. If you want to someone to tell you how high a chair should be, go hire one of those graduates.</p>
<p>Industrial Engineering is basically an Applied Mathematics degree. Anyone who says it’s easy does not know what their talking about. It may be one of the hardest engineering fields out there.</p>
<p>why is poli sci a joke compared to electrical engineering?
haha im kidding… IEOR isn’t that easy.
but IEOR prolly have maybe 3 optimization/LP classes… whearas for EE every class is math intensive. EEs have to try in every class. if an IEORer gets 3 Cs in the classes mentioned above, he could still bring it up by taking “engineering” classes in human behavior, workforce leadership/mgmt, product advertising design, etc.
but it’s skewed bc ppl are biased when they know admissions rates. it’s kind of like saying MIT is much harder than Caltech because the admissions rate is 10 vs 16. (chances are you won’t be sleeping/raging a lot at either place)</p>
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<p>Lol, Im just curious but what do admission rates have to do with the difficulty of a major?</p>
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<p>This may just be because were familiar with different programs, but Ive never heard of these classes before in my life. Most people seem to think there is a lot more of a business aspect to IE than I have found at Purdue where there really isnt any with the exception of one Engineering Economics class which is basically a microecon class focusing on project/product lifecycle analysis.</p>
<p>At least at Purdue, your first two years are about the same as an EE calc sequence, physics (mech, E&M/O), lin alg, diffeq, chem, cs, linear circuits(EE), statics/dynamics (ME), Thermo (ME), etc Then the rest of your classes are in statistics, optimization(LP,Stoch), manufacturing systems & controls, production and process design/systems, computing(simulation, etc.), and yes, I believe two required classes in human factors.</p>
<p>Those are not Industrial engineering classes you mentioned, I have never heard of them before. Industrial Engineering deals with as much Math, if not more than ECE. Industrial Engineers deal with advanced Stochastic and Statistics, do ECE or any other Engineers deal with such material?</p>
<p>ECE has control theory, dynamic programming, and optimization. That’s why many of the dynamic optimization superstars are EEs.</p>
<p>Bertsekas: [Dimitri</a> Bertsekas Homepage](<a href=“http://www.mit.edu/people/dimitrib/home.html]Dimitri”>Dimitri Bertsekas Homepage)
Tsitsiklis: [John</a> N. Tsitsiklis](<a href=“http://web.mit.edu/jnt/www/home.html]John”>John N. Tsitsiklis)
Bertsimas: [Professor</a> Dimitris Bertsimas](<a href=“http://web.mit.edu/dbertsim/www/index.html]Professor”>DBERTSIM HAS MOVED)</p>
<p>Seriously, does anyone think that IE is actually harder than EE/CPE at the same school?</p>
<p>EECS at Berkeley is <em>EASILY</em> tougher than IEOR.</p>
<p>I’d imagine that’s the case for most schools.</p>
<p>But further than that, I believe that it simply doesn’t have the “weedout” culture that other engineering majors do. The one IE class I was in did not impress me in the slightest in terms of difficulty.</p>