The courses you enjoy in school are often a good clue to the careers you'll
enjoy. This was the case with Elena Joshi. She's a senior instructor and the
undergraduate program coordinator of industrial engineering at Pennsylvania
State University.
"I was always good in math and science throughout school, so I was directed
towards engineering," says Joshi. "I was thinking I would do something like
civil engineering, only because I had heard of it before, but my older brother
was studying industrial engineering. So, I browsed through the school bulletin
that contained all the majors, and their descriptions and the courses involved
in industrial engineering seemed the most interesting to me, so I decided
to pursue it."
When Joshi hears back from graduates of the industrial engineering program,
they often comment on how much they enjoy "working with people and being able
to work on different projects/types of problems every day," she says.
Kazuo Takeda is an industrial engineer who gets to work on projects in
a rather enviable setting -- Disneyland Resort, in California.
"My current work is to assist in supporting the many 'behind the magic'
activities at the Disneyland Resort," says Takeda. "Our team will support
activities that maintain our great attractions, help our warehouse partners
with understanding options to get our product to our guests better, assisting
with building layout and designs, etc."
Like many industrial engineers, Takeda enjoys a variety of activities in
his work. No two days are the same, and there's a lot of interaction with
others.
"I enjoy that our projects are usually always different and that we can
have a direct touch to the various stakeholders who support our guest experiences,"
says Takeda. "I find it very rewarding when our clients specifically ask for
our assistance to help them improve a process. Other very rewarding experiences
involve developing new IEs and other (Disneyland employees)."
All of that interaction with others means that people skills are essential.
Forget any stereotypes you might have heard about engineers being more comfortable
around technology than people.
"The two main qualities that I value are the ability to communicate effectively
and 'engineered common sense,'" says Takeda. "A good IE needs to engage with
others to understand their processes and to express recommendations on how
to do things better. Because of this, IEs tend to be the most 'social' of
the engineering disciplines. IEs that do well often are involved in other
activities like sports or other outside clubs and organizations."
How can you know if you'd be well suited to being an industrial engineer?
"If your friends comment to you that you seem to always have a back-up
plan and are always prepared, then you may be an IE," says Takeda. "If you
enjoy shows like 'MythBusters' because you love to see how things work and
how to prove it can or cannot work, you may be an IE."
John Blake is an associate professor of industrial engineering at a university.
He became an industrial engineer by following his interests in school.
"Like a lot of kids going through school, I was interested in math and
science, and I thought engineering would be a good, practical thing to do,"
says Blake. "And I was kind of interested in the idea of computers and operational
research and the human factors -- sort of the application to practical problems.
I think that's always what interested me."
If you like making a difference in the real world, then industrial engineering
may be for you. It's not just theory.
"All engineering is applied, in the end," says Blake. "I thought it was
kind of interesting that you would take information to organizations to kind
of tweak organizations and how they worked."
Blake says it's important for industrial engineers to like people. Creative
thinking is also essential.
"In some sense I kind of laugh and say, 'The people that we like are lazy
people who would look at something and say, I'm not doing it that way, I'm
going to find a way to do it faster or easier,'" says Blake. "So, if you've
ever done work around the house and thought, 'There's got to be an easier
way to do this,' that's kind of a good quality."
Industrial engineer Craig Stevens is helping physicians find easier ways
to do things. As a consulting engineer he has worked with more than 100 companies.
He's currently working for HCA Healthcare, the largest hospital company in
the world.
"The difference between industrial engineering and, say, mechanical engineering
and chemical engineering, is that industrial engineers are people-centric,"
says Stevens. "We focus on the person and how they fit in the workforce. And
there may be some mechanical aspects to that or electrical aspects to that,
but it's all interfacing with people. So, you have to be gregarious and you
have to be able to come in and build relationships with people."
Stevens says industrial engineers have a lot of career options.
"There are so many different ways you can go," says Stevens. "You can go
into health care or manufacturing, or you could go in a lot of different directions,
so you have to find something that you're interested in and excited about
and want to improve."
Keep in mind that making improvements as an industrial engineer is not
just about logic. It's also about creativity.
"You need to think outside of the box," says Stevens. "You've
got to be able to go in and find new ways to do old things."