Industrial Engineering:Why students come and what makes them stay?

摘要

The relative anonymity of industrial engineering may be a significant reason for the slow growthrnof the discipline and the relatively low enrollment in industrial engineering academic programs.rnIn order to inform industrial engineering (IE) degree programs of factors that help increase bothrnenrollment and graduation rates, this paper summarizes the outcomes of IE student interviewsrnregarding what drew them to the industrial engineering program at the University of Oklahomarnand what encouraged them to stay. Out of 45 IE students interviewed, 79 total commentsrn(comprising 13 classifications) were identified addressing recruiting and only 27 commentsrn(across 5 classifications) addressed retention. The majority of students (53%) reported that thernnature of the degree was a critical factor in choosing IE as a major. This demonstrates thernimportance of informing students about IE as a career option. For retention, it appeared thatrnstudent-faculty interaction had the strongest impact, as reported by 29% of the sample. Whilernthis factor may be more difficult to implement, it was critical for students in our sample to haverninteraction with the faculty outside of the classroom and to feel that the faculty were interested inrnthe students’ futures.