Industrial engineering (IE) is the most wide-ranging engineering discipline in terms of career options. While other traditional engineering majors tend to focus on specific applications of skill sets, an industrial engineering education offers you the flexibility to build your career in the industry of your choice. Because industrial engineers focus on bridging the gap between management and operations in a cross-section of organizations and professional fields, they often begin their careers with varying job titles. Production engineer, quality engineer, management engineer, productivity manager and process engineer are common entry-level or early management jobs for our graduates in manufacturing, health care and other related engineering fields.

IE beginning salaries rank in the top group of high-paying engineering disciplines and fast advancement of IE's up the ladder is not unusual. In fact, because so many IE’s are moving into top management positions due to their unique training, the outlook for continued rapid growth in industrial engineering is excellent. - Institute of Industrial Engineers, Planning Your Career as an IE/The People-Oriented Engineering Profession.

Teaching Philosophy
Our teaching philosophy reflects this diversity and identifies the industrial engineer as a broadly-trained integration engineer, concerned with enabling complex systems to function effectively. The industrial engineer must understand the interaction of the components of a system, and coordinate the flow of materials and information to effectively manage the operation. As an industrial engineering professional, you’ll play an important role in defining information needs and developing strategies for decision-making based on incomplete knowledge.

Drawing on this background, the skills of the industrial engineer have much greater application than simply traditional production environments. In a growing service sector economy including health care delivery, public safety, air transportation, and banking, for example, issues of resource management, scheduling, quality of service, and systems design are important. Our comprehensive education ensures you’ll have exposure to all these areas through lectures, projects, case studies and outside speakers.

Outside the Classroom
Beyond completing traditional coursework requirements, industrial engineering students are strongly encouraged to participate in professional organizations, internships and research projects sponsored by the department. We have worked hard to develop relationships with local companies for utilization by our students.

The flexibility offered through a degree in industrial engineering provides an attractive choice for potential employers. There will always be a need for increased efficiency and productivity in the workplace. This need guarantees a demand for highly compensated industrial engineers over the coming decades.