You’ve heard it before, from your friends and family: so what really is Industrial Engineering? Before a cogent response comes to mind, you can see the interest draining out of their eyes, so you briefly mumble something about probability and statistics. It looks like “Industrial Engineering” will remain an enigma, for now.

Industrial Engineering, like most other fields of engineering, was created to meet the rising demands of the Industrial Revolution. As mechnical engineers created cars and material scientists invented new formullations of steel, industrial engineers rose to meet the challenge of organizing and integrating people, information, materials, and equipment as businesses operated in increasingly complex environments. It is within this larger, organizational and systemic context that IEs operate.

Although IE is most commonly associated with manufacturing and distribution (think six sigma, lean manufacturing, and supply chain, take IE 381/382 if you’re interested in these), it turns out that the process of examining complex systems using mathematical tools is incredibly useful in other disciplines. IEs can work in healthcare, finance, and often work as managers. It’s no wonder that many CEOs also happened to be IEs in college, such as Tim Cook (CEO of Apple).

INFORMS, or the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science, is the largest professional organization for IEs. It summarizes its mission as advancing the science and technology and decision making to “save lives, save money, and solve problems”. This is what I think IE is about - in a complex world, how do we know what decisions are available to us, predict their outcomes, and choose the optimal one?

Ultimately, your definition of IE will depend on your experiences, whether it’s classes, extracurriculars, mentors, or jobs. And that’s the best part about this major - ultimately, it’s up to you how you define it and what you do with it. The possibilities are only constrained by your imagination. Maybe that’s why they call us “imaginary engineers”!