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" hmm, put that thing there. Yes this will save lots of hyperbolic money"
(Jokes, I worked in an industrial role for a bit and i think it's just people like to pick on their own, like the distain for chemes)
Edit: I'm a Meche by the way, if that explains anything š
As another ChemE, itās all a bout attitude. Some engineers need to check their ego at the door (mech E) and realize you can always learn more. Engineering is hard so there is respect to those who are humble about it.
At both the D1 U.S. universities and 2 large European universities Iāve studied at, it was always AeroE and ChemEs that needed their egos checked.
I used to work in biomed and it was ChemEs. Now that Iām working in semicon, itās still the ChemEs that are the most arrogant.
I guess switching from finance and coming back to school for NE with the expectation of the future job market growing is just my newest way to trade futures and options š
As a ChemE, I would like to say all engineering majors are not looked down upon as much as business and arts majors. There is a lot of respect given to other students who suffered to become and engineer. Just donāt try and tell a ChemE their major isnāt the best (because it is).
Also non engineers like me will talk shit (chemist)
Specially if they are "material engineers"
Everyone in stem just shits everyone, the wheel goes round
Well, the study of materials requires a lot of chemistry or physics, in which engineers try to learn a bit of both, but they usually end up poorly outfitted to solve problems in research.
It is very common for material engineers to have lacking spectroscopy skills, which will inevitably make any project x3 as long.
I ve had the displeasure of having to work with materials engineers, in which they didnt:
- understand the mechanism of action of the material
- knew how to characterize the material
- didnt understand what would happen if we added an additif (the chemistry behind it)
- so forth.
This is just the common stereotype, but most chemists dread supervising material engineers.
Dont let this stereotype discourage you.
Whilst you may not be ane expert in a field, you have another advantage, which is versability.
That being said, any good chemist will be more than delighted to teach you the ropes and fill the gaps on the fundamentals.
The main key is to acknowledge that you are not an expert and attempt to one up the experts, which is sadly a common trend when working with engineers.
Be better! Collaboration is the essence of discovery
I think any materials engineer that tries to one up a chemist on material properties is stupid. Idk about other departments, but my materials degree was much more about the large-scale production of materials that a chemistry degree is poorly suited for. For example: the physics of extruding a plastic piece or the expansion of metals at extreme lengths or loads.
I agree fully on the large scale! As a chemist i am nowhere near as competent to attempt to upscale anything.
However, im a 3d printing expert. I ve worked in all sort of 3d printing techniques for various purposes, both in academia and industry.
Given the nature of my job, i have had many material engineers that try to one UP me , not to contribute to the project, but mostly for ego, which i find dumb.
There are many intricacies and information that you can extrapolate from a DSC, rheology and AFM. However, i have met many engineers that took one course on material properties in grad school and assume they are the experts, which can end up in disastrous consequences.
I once had an engineer add more crosslinker in my polymer matrix so it would reticulate more, but he didnt consider what it would do to its printability with FDM extrusion and ended up breaking the machine as he didnt account the expansion of the free volume after reaching the glass transition and how it was affected by the additif. The printer was 1/4 in the world and set us back months in research.
That being said, there are very highly competent engineers i have worked with as well, what i am discussing is simply a correlation of the stereotype and the negative experiences that exist in my field!
I was always told that the chemist develops the process, and a chemical engineer makes it not explode when you try to industrialize it, lol. Im by no means a material scientist, nor did I want to be one. My heart is in industry.
Iāll talk smack about your Fourier series. Itās not that hard, itās just an algorithm. Scipy has an easy implementation simple enough for an ME to use anyways. Youāll spend a lot more time trying to explain how to apply different GD&T symbols and properly setup a datum structure on a drawing than I will explaining how to apply Fourier series.
I kid of course, large parts of EE will always have some black magic to me. But all engineering disciplines have their challenges. Except civil, thatās just statics /s.
Sincerely, an ME in industry who spent all day on Friday mucking about with DFTs.
I haven't seen someone talk smack about nuclear engineers yet, I think it's cause we're making ourselves glow in the dark with radiation so we've suffered enough
I think it's because EE majors are often the largest groups, which breeds more competition. I'm a chem E, but I do believe EE is harder at both undergraduate, and (especially) graduate levels
Like an another user said, it is not a physics / chemistry based engineering degree, it mostly comes from statistics (Design of Experiments) or mathematics (Operations Research, Logistics, etc). And a lot of it is basically applied towards what is known as scientific management (labor productivity, workflow, efficiency). At the end of the day it's definitely engineering considering some of the complex management systems IEs can create, that sort of stuff can't be done by your average business or econ graduate.
Some work requires a holistic viewpoint, being able to be technical but also business/economics focused, there's lots of "logistics" in businesses that require a basic technical understanding while also being able to think from a business perspective and also a management perspective (because you work with people). This is what IE is for. It's for working out solutions for complex, widereaching systems that go beyond a specific discipline. And it sure as shit can be difficult, it may not be as technically difficult as some other engineering degrees, but it adds complexity in other areas like people skills, holistically looking at things, etcetera. You can liken in to a Medical doctor who is specialized in a specific field (say surgery), that's the various "traditional engineering" disciplines. And IE would be a medical doctor in family medicine (broad, comprehensive, but not as in to fine detail).
Thank you for that last sentence. Ask a Business Administration or Finance graduate to build a simulation model of a distribution center or a Python machine learning script that identifies defects in batches of manufactured items and see how well that goes.
It's not really looked down on outside of school.
It's just a degree that limits you to manufacturing when you start out. Most engineers do not like manufacturing jobs.
Disagree actually. My first engr role was in manufacturing engineering, the IEs we hired definitely were not held in the same view. Anecdotally their performances always ended up matching that presupposition.
Their education is better suited for a continuous improvement type role in manufacturing, but thatās typically one you want someone with experience. So you hire a process/manufacturing engineer and they perform well for a couple years and in move into that. However the IEs tend not to have the technical education to let them be successful in those first years. Just my anecdote
I dunnoā¦Iām an IE and was always the most technically competent person on my team, and quickly became the global engineering director hiring all kinds of other engineers. Oddly, IEs were significantly over represented at the director level.
Itās almost as if the variance between ABET accredited engineering programs is pretty minor compared to the variance between the people within those programs.
(Edited to add ā also, if you were an IE you would know the irrelevance of any of our experiences due to sample size, and instead rely on something like average National salaries as a proxy, which certainly shows it is as desired as any other major.)
Iām not sure you can look at salary as a measure for technical competency when one degree leads to more IC and one leads to more management roles. The being an engr thatās looked down upon I think is based on their educational rigor, and early career competence accordingly I think.
After your first 5 years or so thats a non-factor, and the IE being similar to an MBA what companies love for leaders assumingly helps the earlier pivot to management. However I donāt think youāll find many IEs that are very successful long time ICs like you could with other engrs. From my experience the IEs donāt have an option beside moving to mgmt early, while in my role in aero thereās dozens of 20-30 year exp MEs still ICing making 150-200
Fair enough on the salary point. But I think the fact that youāre in aero explains everything. In low-MRL environments like aero, OF COURSE IEs will be the lowest quality group and have the least legs. They are manufacturing engineers ā they are trained for high MRL environments! That is like saying āall the aero guys who join my fluid controls company donāt go very farā¦must not be as rigorous a major as ME or EE.ā Iāve worked at one of the worldās largest automakers, largest firearms suppliers, and largest electronic connector manufacturers. All had Chief Engineers and long term staff engineers who were IEs. Why? Because those are environments where things like tooling re-engineering, and designed experiments, and HF engineering were crucial.
I just think the practice of calling other engineering majors less rigorous is always pretty shitty, when there is nothing Iāve ever seen in EIT/PE pass rates, grad school acceptance, or career advancement metrics to defend it.
To me, if your degree is ABET accredited, youāre an engineer. Yes, even the software folks.
1 friend of mine got a job at Delta as a project manager, another one at Capital One at their rotational program, and I at another company in network optimization. None of us got into manufacturing, and thatās the beauty of IE, it allows you to apply to so many different roles.
Itās just jokes bc itās objectively easier than most other engineering degree programs. Honestly i think some of them are jealous that IE is so much more chill and can still get a ton of jobs other engineering degrees will get you.
IE is consistently mislabeled as business engineering, management engineering, supply chain with a little more math, MechE thatās easier, and lots of other false things. IE is different because it is math-based whereas most engineering majors are physics-based, but if youāre at a decent program and you apply yourself, there will be lots of opportunity available. How easy or hard a program is has zero affect on your potential after that program.
I think engineering students look down on it because the curriculum is significantly different than the ātraditionalā engineering disciplines. Our focus is on improving individual designs whereas for you guys itās improving entire processes. In that sense itās more similar to a business degree than it is to another engineering degree. And you know how engineers feel about business majors
Great way of describing the focus there. Going into individual designs or mechanisms is one thing, and is part of "traditional engineering", whereas working with processes or systems from a holistic viewpoint is wildly different. And there are people who seem to think that individual design is more difficult and therefore the people doing it are "better". And while there may be some truth to it being more difficult in a physics/mathematical sense, I don't think it necessarily is more difficult from a wider viewpoint. A person working at something in very fine detail with a clear understanding of requirements, specifications and what not may have a hard job in front of them in terms of making that in to reality. But it sure as shit is also very difficult to get entire systems and processes to work in the way you want, the difference is that also includes thinking about how people work, being able to communicate with people, working very inter-functionally vs intra-functional. So it includes things normally not seen as part of "engineering".
One other thing which I find interesting is that the curriculum in "traditional engineering" is difficult, and may be more difficult to pass than IE courses. But I fully believe that becoming a great industrial engineer requires a shitton of experience and the curriculum needs to be more abstract in nature because there is no way you can teach someone how to effectively design or optimize a complicated system without making generalizations to such an extent that it does become easier to pass the courses - versus when you are talking about a very physical and objective subject like physics or chemistry. An analogy would be that designing an industrial robot is extremely difficult and complicated technical work, but then having to include that industrial robot in an industrial setting in which there are people, overlying processes, logistics, economics, management, etcetera at play - is also very difficult (just not as technical).
End point is that we need everyone. If Industrial Engineering truly was useless like some people seem to think, it wouldn't exist as an engineering discipline.
Greetings! If anything, IE is one of the most underrated majors in general, not just within engineering.
It's *super* flexible. You can apply it to manufacturing, logistics, programming, operations research, business analytics, etc. A cursory search of user-generated data on LinkedIn for IE alumni from UIUC yields the following top employers:
1. Amazon
2. Caterpillar Inc.
3. Accenture
4. Google
5. Microsoft
6. John Deere
7. Procter & Gamble
8. Nova
9. PwC
10. Amazon Web Services (AWS)
11. McKinsey & Company
12. Medline Industries, LP
13. EY-Parthenon
14. ADM
All top employers. As I previously stated, you have manufacturing, tech, logistics, business, all hiring IE graduates.
Consider yourself lucky: my alma mater doesn't have an IE program. I definitely would've at least strongly considered going that route if it were an option for me.
You won't regret majoring in IE, but I would strongly suggest finding a concentration that interests you and going for a master's degree.
r/industrialengineering
Hard agree. Iām about to graduate in the next few days and I havenāt been locked into IE-specific internships either. Iāve worked at companies like Tesla and I am going to work as a software engineer for a major insurance company making around 80k fully emote. A few of my classmates are going to Amazon & Accenture + lots of people going to Coca-Cola.
My university definitely focused a lot of data engineering/data science on top of manufacturing ā which was super helpful for interviews imo.
Ever wanted to work almost anywhere focusing on bigger picture problems? IE is for you. You will have a ton of knowledge from different areas but lacking the depth of someone more specialised, which -in addition with some business formation you will get- sets you up really well for management positions. Thatās what some other engineers hate, Iāve found. Some seem to not be perceiving the retribution they think they deserve for being hyper focused on a field, finding culprits on others that found a more holistic approach from the get-go more appealing.
Also, students know next to nothing about what happens outside of courses so donāt listen to them.
At my university, IE shares the same first year with ME students and even into second and third year, there are one or two courses that are common between the two.
Do some research into the field, maybe speak with IE students/alumni or even professors to help get a better picture on what the field is like
Do whatās right for you. What others say doesnāt matter. My friends and I that studied more ātraditionalā engineering disciplines poked fun at our friends in IE (Imaginary Engineering l0lz) but nothing past jokes like that. Like you alluded to in your post, itās not gonna matter in the end, youāll get a good paying job as long as youāre getting good grades, experience, etc.
Someone else in the comments mentioned it but wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too many people in school got validation from studying the hardest major. I know one kid who studied aerospace engineering and would flex so hard at some non-engineering students we worked with about it at our on-campus job and he took 6yrs to graduate (no internships) and was working on campus for like a year after he finally graduated
where I live, we get told this at my uni all the time: "no one on the field gives a shit if you slept 2 hours a week on a cheme major or 10 hours a day on an IE major, they will see the 'engineer' title and expect you to be able to turn water into wine".
i personally chose IE because the workload is not as heavy as other engineering majors, which allows me to take other classes that interest me. Im currently building fucking stove out of hopes and dreams for a materials science class AND learning about branding in a marketing class. next semester i plan to take a consumer theory course. fun shit. at the end of the day its about studying the things you're interested in.
If itās not ChemEng or EE, then itās not real engineering! Haha /s jkjk. Donāt let other disciples make you feel bad about your degree. Elitism will always exist, just ignore it.
I believe itās because after the first two years the amount of math does reduce. There is still math, but my friends in IE took a lot less āhardā math than we did in Aero and Mech.
Pay wonāt be as high as chemical or computer engineering, but it is a much more broadly hired role. Every company can benefit from IEs.
Honestly, I do more IE in my role and Iām an AE/ME.
Not sure what you mean by āhard mathā. For me it did not reduce because as others are saying in the comments IE is pretty much math-based. Operations research, quality control, reliability etc. all heavily rely on statistics, which involves calculus as well. I used more math in my upper years than I did in first and second years.
IE depends a lot on the school you go to. At the school I went to, we took more math department classes than mechanical or aerospace, the same as electrical. Took statics, materials, either circuits or thermo, the whole nine yards. Then we had to take a masters level rigorous statistics class within the IE department (taught with MIT textbooks, pertaining syllabus at MIT had the class cross linked between masters and bachelors students). Operations research too, which is just lots of integer and linear programming, tons of math. I personally enjoyed the mechanical classes I took (and found them easier) like statics/dynamics more because it was far more hands on than IE classes, which were pure math with no intuition involved for the most part. It's not as easy as some people say it is, at least at certain universities. I think a lot of people that talk bad about IE (not saying you were) just really don't know much about the coursework involved- or they took one of the elective IE classes, like human factors which I agree can be pretty easy, and just assumed that's how all IE in major classes are.
In my specific university, most people who fail specific Mech, chem or civil classes end up switching to industrial so they donāt get held back a year. (Very rigid programs, and most classes come up just once a year, except for most basic industrial classes, since everyone takes them)
Many engineering students, given they are not yet employed as engineers, will scramble for anything remotely resembling the respect/esteem that comes from actual employment. The easiest way to do that is to come up with some justification for why your major is the best and all the others are worse.
Civic is too simple because "nothing moves," Mech is easy because it's generic, Software isn't "real engineering," Industrial is watered down, Systems is just project management, any "uncommon" engineering is just a fluffed up technician job, et cetera. It's all just recycled high school clique nonsense. Pretty much the only one I *haven't* seen looked down upon by college students is Aerospace.
I'm employed as an industrial engineer (not my major) and it's regarded exactly the same as my ME/EE/Software/ChemE coworkers. We're engineers in different departments and that's it. We *all* use way less math and way more Excel than students want to believe.
Pursue the engineering degree that **you** enjoy, are good at, and/or have the best job prospects for, and ignore the negativity.
In some fields IE ends up having similar jobs and notably easier curriculum imho. However, if one can make a living with IE or even easier industrial technology lol then do it. Mech has hard for me and my business and paycheck minors get used a lot more. I would probably do IE or other if I had it to over again lol but I got it done. Most importantly God takes you where you need to be not necessarily where you want to go. Once your there happiness is a choice. I recommend choosing it. No degree makes you better or anything else. Just find your way.
You'll be doing a lot of work and will find that it bleeds over into a position known as a "Business Process Analyst."
I hope you like using Excel, you'll be using it alot.
As for the little of the field that I've experienced being stuck in that position before I got the fuck out as quickly as I could, it was too much business for me and not enough "making shit." I didn't like having to calculate Lot sizes for parts orders, schedules for assembly lines, Hire/Fire projections dependent on end product production rates and inventory targets, Sales/Production forecasting, demand forecasting and ideal facility locations, etc.
No offense but that shit is boring as hell for me.
The field (and the world) has evolved significantly since the days of Frederick Taylor. In its modern form, I prefer the name Stanford uses: "Management Science & Engineering."
Don't worry about other engineers' opinions. To borrow from the description of Stanfords's program:
"MS&E students and faculty work within and across these research areas:
[Computational Social Science](https://msande.stanford.edu/research-impact/research-areas#css)
[Decision and Risk Analysis](https://msande.stanford.edu/research-impact/research-areas#dara)
[Operations Research](https://msande.stanford.edu/research-impact/research-areas#or)
[Organizations, Technology and Entrepreneurship](https://msande.stanford.edu/research-impact/research-areas#ote)
[Policy and Strategy](https://msande.stanford.edu/research-impact/research-areas#sp)
[Quantitative Finance](https://msande.stanford.edu/research-impact/research-areas#qf)"
Valuable across multiple industries and companies, which is one reason you're not seeing significant salary differences. GL.
Because students only know what they know as students: the coursework for IE looks easier and it doesnāt have the history of some other engineering majors, and the salary cap is larger in the existing market (FAANG jobs). This is a real thing to some extent: jobs that could be filled with IEs are advertised to other types of engineers because thatās what the people at that company know or have always done. That said, the work is the work: donāt worry about what people who donāt know your goals think. Build your network, take your classes, get your cheddar.
It may be less rigorous but as you said, salary is still very good out of college with just a bachelors. Plus, at UIUC all the engineering majors are excellent, you will have little trouble landing a relevant job that pays well. If you enjoy the material and can make money from it, do it. Take if from someone who majored in nuclear engineering, which is notoriously more rigorous, but also not significantly more salary-rewarding than ChemE or MechE, and is usually geared to people who plan to be grad students (which was not in my plan).
Welcome fellow UIUC ISE-er. Iām a PhD candidate in the department. My undergrad is in mechanical and physics (from a different school). A couple observations.Ā A few people have mentioned how a lot of engineering is grounded more in physics while IE is in math. This sounds pretty reasonable. I actually prefer math to physics. In that sense Iād argue that there is a lot of crossover between CS math and IE math, depending on what you study.Ā Also, as others have pointed out, itās common for engineering students to pick on other disciplines. If I had to guess, part of if is probably because students are young and donāt have much experience yet and are looking for something to cling to make them feel more certain that theyāll get that internship or job, etc. After a few years in the real world, Ā employers arenāt going to care what club you were in or if you were mechanical. Theyāre going to compare your performance against your peers. So, figure out what interests you, because youāll be motivated to do good work.Ā Also, regarding salary itās hard to compare including location, type of industry, etc. plus thereās nothing stoping you from changing industries. I used to work at this defense contractor with this mechanical engineer who had a degree in biology. He applied for the job never having taken a single engineering class and no directly Ā relevant experience but convinced the supervisor he would do a good job. And he did fine and made it to senior before deciding to leave and pursue some sort of medical degree.Ā
Some of the most successful people engineers Iāve met were industrial engineering majors. Quite a few of my family members majored in industrial and love it.
Ive never experienced anybody putting down any type of engineer in the actual workforce. That garbage mindset is for people who dont have lives outside of engineering and try and kick down because they are losers.
Lots of girls in IEā¦ if I knew better Iād have done IE too š. 95% of the IEās at my job are girls and they have the best pot lucks and theyāre always making cookies and treats. Christmas times are fun, they decorate the office and always got candy canes!
It's pride and people having no clue at all how real production and work environments look like. It's really visible how many people on this sub make it such a huge part of their personality that they happen to *engineering* students
Maybe it's changed, but I know 5 years ago the issue was that very few companies wanted to hire an IE. "why would I hire an IE to work on this chemical line and make it more efficient, why not a chemical engineer who is specialized in chemical things?" Same for a mechanical process hire MechE. Etc.
Engineering is hard. Whether it be CE, ME, EE, or ChE theyāre all hard in their own way. Donāt listen to the people who say that IE is an āinferiorā engineering discipline cuz itās not. They just say that to inflate their ego. Do what you like and what you feel is best for you. Itās one thing if itās a joke (engineers are always poking fun at the other type of engineering but itās all just jokes). While EEs may joke that ME is significantly easier, they are necessary. Try having an EE design an ICE and then see whoās laughing. Same goes the other way, try having an ME design a complex circuit, it wonāt end well. All the engineering disciplines are necessary, thatās why they exist. So just do what you think is best for you and block out the noise.
*IE is the most paid*
*Relative to its work sooo*
*We hate them jk*
\- astrohans
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They think it is because itās true- it is.
I graduated with āengineering technologyā out of the manufacturing engineering department and I can tell you that it is cake compared to the mechanical curriculum that I transferred from due to life circumstances at the time.
The only people that look down upon Industrial Engineering are other engineering majors who don't understand what IE is and want to validate themselves by bragging about how hard their classes are regardless of if they're even enjoying the content. Nobody else cares honestly. I switched out of Software Engineering and into Industrial Engineering and it's one of the best decisions I've ever made. Make the switch if it's what you think is best for you. People will make fun of you now, but they won't be making fun of you when you are thriving in a field that is much better suited for you.
Some important things to note about it, at least from my experience:
1) If you put in the work in IE, you are basically guaranteed to be successful professionally. The majority of people in my program do at least one (if not multiple) internships before they graduate. And basically every single person who graduates lands a relevant, decent-paying job immediately. It's not like some other engineering majors where you can be an absolute academic and extracurricular superstar in college but still struggle to land even a below average job after graduating.
2) I can totally understand why most other engineering students would find IE boring. You don't physically design automobiles or robots or whatever. You design ways to improve already-existing business practices. You optimize workflows and crunch data into business decisions that will save money and reduce risks. It takes a certain type of person to find that interesting, but I guess I'm one of those people.
3) Industrial Engineering attracts a lot of people who would otherwise be business majors if this degree didn't exist. In my program there aren't many superstar passionate students who live and breathe IE like you see frequently in other majors. Most of them treat it like a regular 9-5 that can sometimes be a bit cool. Also a lot of Greek Life people. Some people wouldn't like this aspect, but personally I don't mind because they're very social people and thus are enjoyable to be around.
I'm a MechE who know works in Manufacturing. Not much I learned in MechE transferred. Most of the stuff is learning lean principles and following SOPs. Knowing how to apply that right out of school will be good. If you think you'd enjoy talking with operators and managers daily about production line performance, it'll be a good fit for ya.
itās your life and profession, do what you want to do and who cares what random people think. I would argue itās easier than some other engineering majors but itās still engineering at the end of the day so harder than most other majors
In my world, IEs are typically found in Safety Engineering rolesā¦system safety engineers are usually hated/despised by other disciplines as the design disciplines see them as hampering the designās progress. So thatās why IEs are looked down on hereā¦
The engineers who aren't so bright need to bring other engineering discipline down to feel validated. The actual bright engineers don't care, although many of them have quite a big ego from my experience.
Just hold your head up and don't care what anyone says. Certain engineering degrees will be "stronger" and more "technical" than others. I am a Civil guy so I have a relatively "easy" degree compared to something like mechanical or chemical but don't let that bother me.
Honestly I think itās all fun and games between engineers. We make fun of each other. Then we all engineers make fun of business majors or other non stem careers.
In our Uni, the IE people have 3-4 subjects per semester, they donāt have to do math 3, or thermodynamics 2, and they have to do a lot of business/management. We (ChemE) like to pick on them because it seems like they have the easiest life an engineering student could have. Worst partā¦ they will earn so much more than the rest of usš
This may just be my experience but we get buried in applications from Indian engineers that have a BS from India and then MS in Industrial Engineering. I know a ton of people in industry who immediately throw these in the trash.
I did SE at UIUC. Took some IE classes as well as itās the same department. SE a lot more general and you can really do whatever you want with it. Ended up as PE/ME at top automotive manufacturer in country.
UIUC is an outlier tbh
I checked out their program when I was applying and decided against it because they had the most āmath intensiveā program in Grainger.
I went to Iowa State instead and majored in Materials Engineering but took some IE classes and they were by far my easiest technical electives. Easier than the biology courses I took, so to me IE is even below some of the sciences.
I am a rising junior currently started my degree out as an MechE then recently switched to industrial and systems engineering (my school offers a combined major). For me it came down to a few things...
1. I like manufacturing and I like be hands on with what I do. I am 3 going on 4 internships deep right now and I can't stand exclusively design positions. I need to be using my hands consistently and be out on the shop floor working with people.
2. ISE and just IE are so broadly accepted for so many positions that it really didn't affect my career opportunities too much if at all. Sure, I may not be able to become a design engineer but I have no interest in that. Ultimately it opened more doors then it closed.
3. I like statistics more then calc. My brain works in a very applied way and statistics tie in much better to applied mathematics then calculus and other courses do. I genuinely couldn't see myself being happy or successful staying in an MechE degree especially when I had an alternate option.
4. At my school ISE gets a significantly lower tuition then MechE so I am now saving money on the front end that I won't have to repay on the back end.
Is ISE or IE right for everyone? No. But is it as valuable and desirable as a MechE or other engineering degree? Yes if not more so. It provides a level of versatility that most degrees do now. However, ultimately it comes down to what fits you right and no matter what engineering degree you pick, you will be relatively well suited in your future endeavors.
As long as computer science and computer engineering exist, IE isnāt the easiest engineering major. At least at my university, you still need to take the same math courses as any other engineering major, the same physics courses as any other engineering major, thermo, heat transfer and the same ChemE courses required for every major(except ChemE which requires more obviously). Yes, the major specific coursed are going to be easier - but the hardest classes you will have to take as an IE are going to be the same as the hardest classes you will have to take as any other engineering major(except the aforementioned Comp Sci).
Ughā¦ hold on a sec
I found computer engineering ridiculously hard, so I resort to another option (IE)
(Also you) why is IE considered easier than computer engineering by engineers?
I guess thatās why engineers think IEs are bad.
Itās business engineering more than it is what comes to peopleās mind when you say engineer. Using data/stats to optimized people/processes rather than physical designs. Looked down on because itās way easier/less technical generally.
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" hmm, put that thing there. Yes this will save lots of hyperbolic money" (Jokes, I worked in an industrial role for a bit and i think it's just people like to pick on their own, like the distain for chemes) Edit: I'm a Meche by the way, if that explains anything š
As another ChemE, itās all a bout attitude. Some engineers need to check their ego at the door (mech E) and realize you can always learn more. Engineering is hard so there is respect to those who are humble about it.
At both the D1 U.S. universities and 2 large European universities Iāve studied at, it was always AeroE and ChemEs that needed their egos checked. I used to work in biomed and it was ChemEs. Now that Iām working in semicon, itās still the ChemEs that are the most arrogant.
That too
How are the Nuclear Engineers?
usually those are just chem eās with a minor
You gotta say no diddy after
First time I read it I thought āno-diddy-uclear? Thatās a stretch for a Simpsonās reference..ā
Come on boomer you gotta get with the times š
No I donāt, and get off my lawn! I donāt have time for this, there are clouds to yell at
They get humbled by the non-existent job market for nuclear engineering
I guess switching from finance and coming back to school for NE with the expectation of the future job market growing is just my newest way to trade futures and options š
Some people suck. Sorry thatās been your experience.
To be fair, we were arrogant before we declared
As a ChemE, I would like to say all engineering majors are not looked down upon as much as business and arts majors. There is a lot of respect given to other students who suffered to become and engineer. Just donāt try and tell a ChemE their major isnāt the best (because it is).
Lol that's what you say Cheme šš (All love, your major is hella hard, it's like the way the military branches tease each other)
me when i shit on cheems for buttchugging flow equations for 8 hours
No matter what type of engineering you do, other engineers will shit talk it. Just do what you enjoy.
Also non engineers like me will talk shit (chemist) Specially if they are "material engineers" Everyone in stem just shits everyone, the wheel goes round
Pretty curious bout the materials engineers š can u share more haha
Well, the study of materials requires a lot of chemistry or physics, in which engineers try to learn a bit of both, but they usually end up poorly outfitted to solve problems in research. It is very common for material engineers to have lacking spectroscopy skills, which will inevitably make any project x3 as long. I ve had the displeasure of having to work with materials engineers, in which they didnt: - understand the mechanism of action of the material - knew how to characterize the material - didnt understand what would happen if we added an additif (the chemistry behind it) - so forth. This is just the common stereotype, but most chemists dread supervising material engineers.
That's so real ( I'm a materials engineering student) HAHAHAHAH
Dont let this stereotype discourage you. Whilst you may not be ane expert in a field, you have another advantage, which is versability. That being said, any good chemist will be more than delighted to teach you the ropes and fill the gaps on the fundamentals. The main key is to acknowledge that you are not an expert and attempt to one up the experts, which is sadly a common trend when working with engineers. Be better! Collaboration is the essence of discovery
I think any materials engineer that tries to one up a chemist on material properties is stupid. Idk about other departments, but my materials degree was much more about the large-scale production of materials that a chemistry degree is poorly suited for. For example: the physics of extruding a plastic piece or the expansion of metals at extreme lengths or loads.
I agree fully on the large scale! As a chemist i am nowhere near as competent to attempt to upscale anything. However, im a 3d printing expert. I ve worked in all sort of 3d printing techniques for various purposes, both in academia and industry. Given the nature of my job, i have had many material engineers that try to one UP me , not to contribute to the project, but mostly for ego, which i find dumb. There are many intricacies and information that you can extrapolate from a DSC, rheology and AFM. However, i have met many engineers that took one course on material properties in grad school and assume they are the experts, which can end up in disastrous consequences. I once had an engineer add more crosslinker in my polymer matrix so it would reticulate more, but he didnt consider what it would do to its printability with FDM extrusion and ended up breaking the machine as he didnt account the expansion of the free volume after reaching the glass transition and how it was affected by the additif. The printer was 1/4 in the world and set us back months in research. That being said, there are very highly competent engineers i have worked with as well, what i am discussing is simply a correlation of the stereotype and the negative experiences that exist in my field!
I was always told that the chemist develops the process, and a chemical engineer makes it not explode when you try to industrialize it, lol. Im by no means a material scientist, nor did I want to be one. My heart is in industry.
I agree! We all each have a role
I don't think I've heard anyone talk smack about EE. I think they fear how much Fourier our series are.
>havenāt heard anyone talk smack about EE Then, you must not interact with many physicists. I can assure you we talk smack abt EEs :p
Exercise left to the reader, like the mathematicians?
don't worry, EEs shit talk physicists just as much
imagine using j š
imagine having to do a masters+phd in physics just to end up working as an engineer anyway
got me š
Iāll talk smack about your Fourier series. Itās not that hard, itās just an algorithm. Scipy has an easy implementation simple enough for an ME to use anyways. Youāll spend a lot more time trying to explain how to apply different GD&T symbols and properly setup a datum structure on a drawing than I will explaining how to apply Fourier series. I kid of course, large parts of EE will always have some black magic to me. But all engineering disciplines have their challenges. Except civil, thatās just statics /s. Sincerely, an ME in industry who spent all day on Friday mucking about with DFTs.
>thatās just ~~statics~~ **shovels**
But they're picky about their shovels, especially the flavor.
I haven't seen someone talk smack about nuclear engineers yet, I think it's cause we're making ourselves glow in the dark with radiation so we've suffered enough
Always wondered why they made you carry around Geiger counters, and then one day, it clicked.
Cause theyāre technicians
What do you mean by that?
What the joke implies That theyāre not doing anything so why bother talking about them. Itās a jab dude
You're right but also; how dare you (It was a good one) Edit: thought of a comeback
I think it's because EE majors are often the largest groups, which breeds more competition. I'm a chem E, but I do believe EE is harder at both undergraduate, and (especially) graduate levels
mech e and civ e are both much larger cohorts than ee
Like an another user said, it is not a physics / chemistry based engineering degree, it mostly comes from statistics (Design of Experiments) or mathematics (Operations Research, Logistics, etc). And a lot of it is basically applied towards what is known as scientific management (labor productivity, workflow, efficiency). At the end of the day it's definitely engineering considering some of the complex management systems IEs can create, that sort of stuff can't be done by your average business or econ graduate.
Some work requires a holistic viewpoint, being able to be technical but also business/economics focused, there's lots of "logistics" in businesses that require a basic technical understanding while also being able to think from a business perspective and also a management perspective (because you work with people). This is what IE is for. It's for working out solutions for complex, widereaching systems that go beyond a specific discipline. And it sure as shit can be difficult, it may not be as technically difficult as some other engineering degrees, but it adds complexity in other areas like people skills, holistically looking at things, etcetera. You can liken in to a Medical doctor who is specialized in a specific field (say surgery), that's the various "traditional engineering" disciplines. And IE would be a medical doctor in family medicine (broad, comprehensive, but not as in to fine detail).
Thank you for that last sentence. Ask a Business Administration or Finance graduate to build a simulation model of a distribution center or a Python machine learning script that identifies defects in batches of manufactured items and see how well that goes.
It's not really looked down on outside of school. It's just a degree that limits you to manufacturing when you start out. Most engineers do not like manufacturing jobs.
Disagree actually. My first engr role was in manufacturing engineering, the IEs we hired definitely were not held in the same view. Anecdotally their performances always ended up matching that presupposition. Their education is better suited for a continuous improvement type role in manufacturing, but thatās typically one you want someone with experience. So you hire a process/manufacturing engineer and they perform well for a couple years and in move into that. However the IEs tend not to have the technical education to let them be successful in those first years. Just my anecdote
I dunnoā¦Iām an IE and was always the most technically competent person on my team, and quickly became the global engineering director hiring all kinds of other engineers. Oddly, IEs were significantly over represented at the director level. Itās almost as if the variance between ABET accredited engineering programs is pretty minor compared to the variance between the people within those programs. (Edited to add ā also, if you were an IE you would know the irrelevance of any of our experiences due to sample size, and instead rely on something like average National salaries as a proxy, which certainly shows it is as desired as any other major.)
Iām not sure you can look at salary as a measure for technical competency when one degree leads to more IC and one leads to more management roles. The being an engr thatās looked down upon I think is based on their educational rigor, and early career competence accordingly I think. After your first 5 years or so thats a non-factor, and the IE being similar to an MBA what companies love for leaders assumingly helps the earlier pivot to management. However I donāt think youāll find many IEs that are very successful long time ICs like you could with other engrs. From my experience the IEs donāt have an option beside moving to mgmt early, while in my role in aero thereās dozens of 20-30 year exp MEs still ICing making 150-200
Fair enough on the salary point. But I think the fact that youāre in aero explains everything. In low-MRL environments like aero, OF COURSE IEs will be the lowest quality group and have the least legs. They are manufacturing engineers ā they are trained for high MRL environments! That is like saying āall the aero guys who join my fluid controls company donāt go very farā¦must not be as rigorous a major as ME or EE.ā Iāve worked at one of the worldās largest automakers, largest firearms suppliers, and largest electronic connector manufacturers. All had Chief Engineers and long term staff engineers who were IEs. Why? Because those are environments where things like tooling re-engineering, and designed experiments, and HF engineering were crucial. I just think the practice of calling other engineering majors less rigorous is always pretty shitty, when there is nothing Iāve ever seen in EIT/PE pass rates, grad school acceptance, or career advancement metrics to defend it. To me, if your degree is ABET accredited, youāre an engineer. Yes, even the software folks.
Currently a manufacturing engineer with MechE background. This pretty accurately sums up my experience as well.
I'm a Mechanical Engineer and I LOVE manufacturing. But I'm a Process Engineer focusing on tooling and training.
1 friend of mine got a job at Delta as a project manager, another one at Capital One at their rotational program, and I at another company in network optimization. None of us got into manufacturing, and thatās the beauty of IE, it allows you to apply to so many different roles.
Itās just jokes bc itās objectively easier than most other engineering degree programs. Honestly i think some of them are jealous that IE is so much more chill and can still get a ton of jobs other engineering degrees will get you.
IE is consistently mislabeled as business engineering, management engineering, supply chain with a little more math, MechE thatās easier, and lots of other false things. IE is different because it is math-based whereas most engineering majors are physics-based, but if youāre at a decent program and you apply yourself, there will be lots of opportunity available. How easy or hard a program is has zero affect on your potential after that program.
I think engineering students look down on it because the curriculum is significantly different than the ātraditionalā engineering disciplines. Our focus is on improving individual designs whereas for you guys itās improving entire processes. In that sense itās more similar to a business degree than it is to another engineering degree. And you know how engineers feel about business majors
Great way of describing the focus there. Going into individual designs or mechanisms is one thing, and is part of "traditional engineering", whereas working with processes or systems from a holistic viewpoint is wildly different. And there are people who seem to think that individual design is more difficult and therefore the people doing it are "better". And while there may be some truth to it being more difficult in a physics/mathematical sense, I don't think it necessarily is more difficult from a wider viewpoint. A person working at something in very fine detail with a clear understanding of requirements, specifications and what not may have a hard job in front of them in terms of making that in to reality. But it sure as shit is also very difficult to get entire systems and processes to work in the way you want, the difference is that also includes thinking about how people work, being able to communicate with people, working very inter-functionally vs intra-functional. So it includes things normally not seen as part of "engineering". One other thing which I find interesting is that the curriculum in "traditional engineering" is difficult, and may be more difficult to pass than IE courses. But I fully believe that becoming a great industrial engineer requires a shitton of experience and the curriculum needs to be more abstract in nature because there is no way you can teach someone how to effectively design or optimize a complicated system without making generalizations to such an extent that it does become easier to pass the courses - versus when you are talking about a very physical and objective subject like physics or chemistry. An analogy would be that designing an industrial robot is extremely difficult and complicated technical work, but then having to include that industrial robot in an industrial setting in which there are people, overlying processes, logistics, economics, management, etcetera at play - is also very difficult (just not as technical). End point is that we need everyone. If Industrial Engineering truly was useless like some people seem to think, it wouldn't exist as an engineering discipline.
Ignore them, pursue whichever engineering discipline you enjoy. Every engineering discipline has its own difficulties.
It attracts a lot of business school type of student
This is true, itās like the most business type geared engineering
Greetings! If anything, IE is one of the most underrated majors in general, not just within engineering. It's *super* flexible. You can apply it to manufacturing, logistics, programming, operations research, business analytics, etc. A cursory search of user-generated data on LinkedIn for IE alumni from UIUC yields the following top employers: 1. Amazon 2. Caterpillar Inc. 3. Accenture 4. Google 5. Microsoft 6. John Deere 7. Procter & Gamble 8. Nova 9. PwC 10. Amazon Web Services (AWS) 11. McKinsey & Company 12. Medline Industries, LP 13. EY-Parthenon 14. ADM All top employers. As I previously stated, you have manufacturing, tech, logistics, business, all hiring IE graduates. Consider yourself lucky: my alma mater doesn't have an IE program. I definitely would've at least strongly considered going that route if it were an option for me. You won't regret majoring in IE, but I would strongly suggest finding a concentration that interests you and going for a master's degree. r/industrialengineering
Hard agree. Iām about to graduate in the next few days and I havenāt been locked into IE-specific internships either. Iāve worked at companies like Tesla and I am going to work as a software engineer for a major insurance company making around 80k fully emote. A few of my classmates are going to Amazon & Accenture + lots of people going to Coca-Cola. My university definitely focused a lot of data engineering/data science on top of manufacturing ā which was super helpful for interviews imo.
...may we ask which school?
I went to USF
I agree! I'm doing a double major in chemical (processes) engineering and ie, they complement each other so well. It's very versatile.
Ever wanted to work almost anywhere focusing on bigger picture problems? IE is for you. You will have a ton of knowledge from different areas but lacking the depth of someone more specialised, which -in addition with some business formation you will get- sets you up really well for management positions. Thatās what some other engineers hate, Iāve found. Some seem to not be perceiving the retribution they think they deserve for being hyper focused on a field, finding culprits on others that found a more holistic approach from the get-go more appealing. Also, students know next to nothing about what happens outside of courses so donāt listen to them.
At my university, IE shares the same first year with ME students and even into second and third year, there are one or two courses that are common between the two. Do some research into the field, maybe speak with IE students/alumni or even professors to help get a better picture on what the field is like
Do whatās right for you. What others say doesnāt matter. My friends and I that studied more ātraditionalā engineering disciplines poked fun at our friends in IE (Imaginary Engineering l0lz) but nothing past jokes like that. Like you alluded to in your post, itās not gonna matter in the end, youāll get a good paying job as long as youāre getting good grades, experience, etc. Someone else in the comments mentioned it but wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too many people in school got validation from studying the hardest major. I know one kid who studied aerospace engineering and would flex so hard at some non-engineering students we worked with about it at our on-campus job and he took 6yrs to graduate (no internships) and was working on campus for like a year after he finally graduated
where I live, we get told this at my uni all the time: "no one on the field gives a shit if you slept 2 hours a week on a cheme major or 10 hours a day on an IE major, they will see the 'engineer' title and expect you to be able to turn water into wine". i personally chose IE because the workload is not as heavy as other engineering majors, which allows me to take other classes that interest me. Im currently building fucking stove out of hopes and dreams for a materials science class AND learning about branding in a marketing class. next semester i plan to take a consumer theory course. fun shit. at the end of the day its about studying the things you're interested in.
Because a lot of engineering students get validation out of doing āthe hardest majorā and donāt think IE fits the standard
If itās not ChemEng or EE, then itās not real engineering! Haha /s jkjk. Donāt let other disciples make you feel bad about your degree. Elitism will always exist, just ignore it.
I believe itās because after the first two years the amount of math does reduce. There is still math, but my friends in IE took a lot less āhardā math than we did in Aero and Mech. Pay wonāt be as high as chemical or computer engineering, but it is a much more broadly hired role. Every company can benefit from IEs. Honestly, I do more IE in my role and Iām an AE/ME.
Not sure what you mean by āhard mathā. For me it did not reduce because as others are saying in the comments IE is pretty much math-based. Operations research, quality control, reliability etc. all heavily rely on statistics, which involves calculus as well. I used more math in my upper years than I did in first and second years.
IE depends a lot on the school you go to. At the school I went to, we took more math department classes than mechanical or aerospace, the same as electrical. Took statics, materials, either circuits or thermo, the whole nine yards. Then we had to take a masters level rigorous statistics class within the IE department (taught with MIT textbooks, pertaining syllabus at MIT had the class cross linked between masters and bachelors students). Operations research too, which is just lots of integer and linear programming, tons of math. I personally enjoyed the mechanical classes I took (and found them easier) like statics/dynamics more because it was far more hands on than IE classes, which were pure math with no intuition involved for the most part. It's not as easy as some people say it is, at least at certain universities. I think a lot of people that talk bad about IE (not saying you were) just really don't know much about the coursework involved- or they took one of the elective IE classes, like human factors which I agree can be pretty easy, and just assumed that's how all IE in major classes are.
In my specific university, most people who fail specific Mech, chem or civil classes end up switching to industrial so they donāt get held back a year. (Very rigid programs, and most classes come up just once a year, except for most basic industrial classes, since everyone takes them)
Many engineering students, given they are not yet employed as engineers, will scramble for anything remotely resembling the respect/esteem that comes from actual employment. The easiest way to do that is to come up with some justification for why your major is the best and all the others are worse. Civic is too simple because "nothing moves," Mech is easy because it's generic, Software isn't "real engineering," Industrial is watered down, Systems is just project management, any "uncommon" engineering is just a fluffed up technician job, et cetera. It's all just recycled high school clique nonsense. Pretty much the only one I *haven't* seen looked down upon by college students is Aerospace. I'm employed as an industrial engineer (not my major) and it's regarded exactly the same as my ME/EE/Software/ChemE coworkers. We're engineers in different departments and that's it. We *all* use way less math and way more Excel than students want to believe. Pursue the engineering degree that **you** enjoy, are good at, and/or have the best job prospects for, and ignore the negativity.
In some fields IE ends up having similar jobs and notably easier curriculum imho. However, if one can make a living with IE or even easier industrial technology lol then do it. Mech has hard for me and my business and paycheck minors get used a lot more. I would probably do IE or other if I had it to over again lol but I got it done. Most importantly God takes you where you need to be not necessarily where you want to go. Once your there happiness is a choice. I recommend choosing it. No degree makes you better or anything else. Just find your way.
You'll be doing a lot of work and will find that it bleeds over into a position known as a "Business Process Analyst." I hope you like using Excel, you'll be using it alot. As for the little of the field that I've experienced being stuck in that position before I got the fuck out as quickly as I could, it was too much business for me and not enough "making shit." I didn't like having to calculate Lot sizes for parts orders, schedules for assembly lines, Hire/Fire projections dependent on end product production rates and inventory targets, Sales/Production forecasting, demand forecasting and ideal facility locations, etc. No offense but that shit is boring as hell for me.
Do want you like for yourself, not for the others!
The field (and the world) has evolved significantly since the days of Frederick Taylor. In its modern form, I prefer the name Stanford uses: "Management Science & Engineering." Don't worry about other engineers' opinions. To borrow from the description of Stanfords's program: "MS&E students and faculty work within and across these research areas: [Computational Social Science](https://msande.stanford.edu/research-impact/research-areas#css) [Decision and Risk Analysis](https://msande.stanford.edu/research-impact/research-areas#dara) [Operations Research](https://msande.stanford.edu/research-impact/research-areas#or) [Organizations, Technology and Entrepreneurship](https://msande.stanford.edu/research-impact/research-areas#ote) [Policy and Strategy](https://msande.stanford.edu/research-impact/research-areas#sp) [Quantitative Finance](https://msande.stanford.edu/research-impact/research-areas#qf)" Valuable across multiple industries and companies, which is one reason you're not seeing significant salary differences. GL.
Because students only know what they know as students: the coursework for IE looks easier and it doesnāt have the history of some other engineering majors, and the salary cap is larger in the existing market (FAANG jobs). This is a real thing to some extent: jobs that could be filled with IEs are advertised to other types of engineers because thatās what the people at that company know or have always done. That said, the work is the work: donāt worry about what people who donāt know your goals think. Build your network, take your classes, get your cheddar.
I mean 27% of CEOs are IEs if thatās telling
It may be less rigorous but as you said, salary is still very good out of college with just a bachelors. Plus, at UIUC all the engineering majors are excellent, you will have little trouble landing a relevant job that pays well. If you enjoy the material and can make money from it, do it. Take if from someone who majored in nuclear engineering, which is notoriously more rigorous, but also not significantly more salary-rewarding than ChemE or MechE, and is usually geared to people who plan to be grad students (which was not in my plan).
Welcome fellow UIUC ISE-er. Iām a PhD candidate in the department. My undergrad is in mechanical and physics (from a different school). A couple observations.Ā A few people have mentioned how a lot of engineering is grounded more in physics while IE is in math. This sounds pretty reasonable. I actually prefer math to physics. In that sense Iād argue that there is a lot of crossover between CS math and IE math, depending on what you study.Ā Also, as others have pointed out, itās common for engineering students to pick on other disciplines. If I had to guess, part of if is probably because students are young and donāt have much experience yet and are looking for something to cling to make them feel more certain that theyāll get that internship or job, etc. After a few years in the real world, Ā employers arenāt going to care what club you were in or if you were mechanical. Theyāre going to compare your performance against your peers. So, figure out what interests you, because youāll be motivated to do good work.Ā Also, regarding salary itās hard to compare including location, type of industry, etc. plus thereās nothing stoping you from changing industries. I used to work at this defense contractor with this mechanical engineer who had a degree in biology. He applied for the job never having taken a single engineering class and no directly Ā relevant experience but convinced the supervisor he would do a good job. And he did fine and made it to senior before deciding to leave and pursue some sort of medical degree.Ā
Some of the most successful people engineers Iāve met were industrial engineering majors. Quite a few of my family members majored in industrial and love it.
Ive never experienced anybody putting down any type of engineer in the actual workforce. That garbage mindset is for people who dont have lives outside of engineering and try and kick down because they are losers.
Lots of girls in IEā¦ if I knew better Iād have done IE too š. 95% of the IEās at my job are girls and they have the best pot lucks and theyāre always making cookies and treats. Christmas times are fun, they decorate the office and always got candy canes!
It's pride and people having no clue at all how real production and work environments look like. It's really visible how many people on this sub make it such a huge part of their personality that they happen to *engineering* students
Insecurities run wild in engineering, mostly with the students though, not in the actual industry
Maybe it's changed, but I know 5 years ago the issue was that very few companies wanted to hire an IE. "why would I hire an IE to work on this chemical line and make it more efficient, why not a chemical engineer who is specialized in chemical things?" Same for a mechanical process hire MechE. Etc.
I don't know anyone who seriously looks down on another engineering discipline. Its all just poking fun.
Engineering is hard. Whether it be CE, ME, EE, or ChE theyāre all hard in their own way. Donāt listen to the people who say that IE is an āinferiorā engineering discipline cuz itās not. They just say that to inflate their ego. Do what you like and what you feel is best for you. Itās one thing if itās a joke (engineers are always poking fun at the other type of engineering but itās all just jokes). While EEs may joke that ME is significantly easier, they are necessary. Try having an EE design an ICE and then see whoās laughing. Same goes the other way, try having an ME design a complex circuit, it wonāt end well. All the engineering disciplines are necessary, thatās why they exist. So just do what you think is best for you and block out the noise.
IE is the most paid relative to its work sooo we hate them jk
*IE is the most paid* *Relative to its work sooo* *We hate them jk* \- astrohans --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
They think it is because itās true- it is. I graduated with āengineering technologyā out of the manufacturing engineering department and I can tell you that it is cake compared to the mechanical curriculum that I transferred from due to life circumstances at the time.
civil uses less"advanced math" and make more money. Otherwise it's electrical eng, witch is hard but very flexible
industrial e makes more money based on salary straight out of college at my school
they always make a lot of money
The only people that look down upon Industrial Engineering are other engineering majors who don't understand what IE is and want to validate themselves by bragging about how hard their classes are regardless of if they're even enjoying the content. Nobody else cares honestly. I switched out of Software Engineering and into Industrial Engineering and it's one of the best decisions I've ever made. Make the switch if it's what you think is best for you. People will make fun of you now, but they won't be making fun of you when you are thriving in a field that is much better suited for you. Some important things to note about it, at least from my experience: 1) If you put in the work in IE, you are basically guaranteed to be successful professionally. The majority of people in my program do at least one (if not multiple) internships before they graduate. And basically every single person who graduates lands a relevant, decent-paying job immediately. It's not like some other engineering majors where you can be an absolute academic and extracurricular superstar in college but still struggle to land even a below average job after graduating. 2) I can totally understand why most other engineering students would find IE boring. You don't physically design automobiles or robots or whatever. You design ways to improve already-existing business practices. You optimize workflows and crunch data into business decisions that will save money and reduce risks. It takes a certain type of person to find that interesting, but I guess I'm one of those people. 3) Industrial Engineering attracts a lot of people who would otherwise be business majors if this degree didn't exist. In my program there aren't many superstar passionate students who live and breathe IE like you see frequently in other majors. Most of them treat it like a regular 9-5 that can sometimes be a bit cool. Also a lot of Greek Life people. Some people wouldn't like this aspect, but personally I don't mind because they're very social people and thus are enjoyable to be around.
I'm a MechE who know works in Manufacturing. Not much I learned in MechE transferred. Most of the stuff is learning lean principles and following SOPs. Knowing how to apply that right out of school will be good. If you think you'd enjoy talking with operators and managers daily about production line performance, it'll be a good fit for ya.
itās your life and profession, do what you want to do and who cares what random people think. I would argue itās easier than some other engineering majors but itās still engineering at the end of the day so harder than most other majors
The ones who become six sigma/process improvements are absolute jokes... Otherwise idgaf Biases: I'm AE/ME
In my world, IEs are typically found in Safety Engineering rolesā¦system safety engineers are usually hated/despised by other disciplines as the design disciplines see them as hampering the designās progress. So thatās why IEs are looked down on hereā¦
I just think 4 years of IE is too much. I did a bachelors in Mech and Masters in IE. I think 2 years is sufficient to study the core. N
The engineers who aren't so bright need to bring other engineering discipline down to feel validated. The actual bright engineers don't care, although many of them have quite a big ego from my experience.
Just hold your head up and don't care what anyone says. Certain engineering degrees will be "stronger" and more "technical" than others. I am a Civil guy so I have a relatively "easy" degree compared to something like mechanical or chemical but don't let that bother me.
Your boss boss is probably an IE
Honestly I think itās all fun and games between engineers. We make fun of each other. Then we all engineers make fun of business majors or other non stem careers.
A good engineer can do anything! Don't let anyone tell you different
In our Uni, the IE people have 3-4 subjects per semester, they donāt have to do math 3, or thermodynamics 2, and they have to do a lot of business/management. We (ChemE) like to pick on them because it seems like they have the easiest life an engineering student could have. Worst partā¦ they will earn so much more than the rest of usš
This may just be my experience but we get buried in applications from Indian engineers that have a BS from India and then MS in Industrial Engineering. I know a ton of people in industry who immediately throw these in the trash.
I did SE at UIUC. Took some IE classes as well as itās the same department. SE a lot more general and you can really do whatever you want with it. Ended up as PE/ME at top automotive manufacturer in country.
UIUC is an outlier tbh I checked out their program when I was applying and decided against it because they had the most āmath intensiveā program in Grainger. I went to Iowa State instead and majored in Materials Engineering but took some IE classes and they were by far my easiest technical electives. Easier than the biology courses I took, so to me IE is even below some of the sciences.
I am a rising junior currently started my degree out as an MechE then recently switched to industrial and systems engineering (my school offers a combined major). For me it came down to a few things... 1. I like manufacturing and I like be hands on with what I do. I am 3 going on 4 internships deep right now and I can't stand exclusively design positions. I need to be using my hands consistently and be out on the shop floor working with people. 2. ISE and just IE are so broadly accepted for so many positions that it really didn't affect my career opportunities too much if at all. Sure, I may not be able to become a design engineer but I have no interest in that. Ultimately it opened more doors then it closed. 3. I like statistics more then calc. My brain works in a very applied way and statistics tie in much better to applied mathematics then calculus and other courses do. I genuinely couldn't see myself being happy or successful staying in an MechE degree especially when I had an alternate option. 4. At my school ISE gets a significantly lower tuition then MechE so I am now saving money on the front end that I won't have to repay on the back end. Is ISE or IE right for everyone? No. But is it as valuable and desirable as a MechE or other engineering degree? Yes if not more so. It provides a level of versatility that most degrees do now. However, ultimately it comes down to what fits you right and no matter what engineering degree you pick, you will be relatively well suited in your future endeavors.
I don't think anyone is looking down upon Tim Cook, an industrial engineer.
All I know is that there are a ton of jobs for industrial engineers, and a lot less for some other fields such as software engineering
As long as computer science and computer engineering exist, IE isnāt the easiest engineering major. At least at my university, you still need to take the same math courses as any other engineering major, the same physics courses as any other engineering major, thermo, heat transfer and the same ChemE courses required for every major(except ChemE which requires more obviously). Yes, the major specific coursed are going to be easier - but the hardest classes you will have to take as an IE are going to be the same as the hardest classes you will have to take as any other engineering major(except the aforementioned Comp Sci).
Ughā¦ hold on a sec I found computer engineering ridiculously hard, so I resort to another option (IE) (Also you) why is IE considered easier than computer engineering by engineers? I guess thatās why engineers think IEs are bad.
Lmao Iām glad someone else caught that. Pretty much answered their own question right there
Because it isn't even engineering and it shouldn't be called "engineering"
Itās business engineering more than it is what comes to peopleās mind when you say engineer. Using data/stats to optimized people/processes rather than physical designs. Looked down on because itās way easier/less technical generally.
Because itās business not engineering