5 Reasons to Study Industrial Engineering

[Shaha Noor]

5 Reasons to Study Industrial Engineering
By Zubin Ajmera

I accept it. I acknowledge it. It's tough for anyone to decide what to major in. What are the career prospects out there? Will the degree be worth it, and will it eventually help you get a good job?

For me, I might have made the most common and costly mistake: following the herd.

I started my bachelor's in electrical engineering and by the time I was in my second year, I knew this wasn't the right fit for me. Too late. I felt I'd wasted my degree and the golden years which I could have spent somewhere else.

I knew I couldn't afford to make such a mistake for my master's degree, so I carefully researched every single option available, and I came across industrial engineering (IE).

Today, I want to show you some of the advantages of studying industrial engineering. Many people have little or no idea of what IE is, and the types of work industrial engineers do on a daily basis.

1. Industrial engineers work in every sector
    You will be hearing this a lot. IEs are in virtually every industry vertical today. Manufacturing, technology, hardware, retail, healthcare – you name it and there is a high possibility of industrial engineering jobs.
After working with eight companies, doing internships, projects and full-time jobs, I feel I can confirm that industrial engineering-related work can be found in every company.

2. Combine technical skills with business acumen
  Many universities offer business classes parallel to IE coursework, in areas such as logistics, supply chain management and analytics. By taking these classes, you get a good grasp of the business side of a company too. Sure, you can take these with any other major, but IE and business complement each other perfectly. This also makes an industrial engineering degree an ideal starting point for an MBA specializing in supply chain management, marketing or finance, which complement the technical aspects of IE.

3. Understand 'big data'
We all know how important the field of big data is getting. Every company today wants to make better business decisions with their increasing and complex chunks of data.

4. Focus on processes
  Being in this industry for so long, I know that IE is a relatively less technical field than other engineering majors. What I mean is that industrial engineering is more focused on processes and finding ways to improve processes.
Don't get me wrong. This by no way means you won't or cannot work on software, or won't be involved in coding. However, there is less of the heavy-lifting coding and the focus is more towards process improvement and ways to bring change through strategies such as cost reduction, savings and reducing timings.

5. Customize IE to match your interests
  As an industrial engineer, you will always have options to explore and work in different job roles. Want to sit at a computer doing deep data analysis? There are industrial engineering jobs in data analysis and business analysis.
Want to work on a production floor doing manufacturing work? There are jobs in logistics engineering, manufacturing engineering, production, forecasting, among many others.

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