General Industrial Engineering
The Industrial Engineering (IE) Track is designed to provide flexibility for students to tailor their graduate program to fit their individual educational objectives. This is the newest track in the ISE Department. A short list of required courses is supplemented by wide latitude in the selection of elective courses to complete the IE degree requirements. This allows the student to pursue a broad path, or to pursue a very narrow path in a particular area of study or with a particular faculty member.
This track is available only at the Blacksburg campus.
There are two master’s degree programs in the general track: the M.Eng and M.S. The curricula in each case include required courses in ISE and technical elective courses. The elective courses are of two types: 1) ISE electives and 2) general technical electives. Both the set of ISE electives and the set of general electives will be specifically determined by the student in direct consultation with his or her advisor and committee. A graduate advisory committee may require a student to take more course credits than the minimum specified here. The student should consult the graduate catalog to determine pre-requisites for any courses specified. Students without a sufficient mathematics and engineering background will be required to take preparatory coursework in these areas that will not count for graduate credit.
The ISE departmental requirements for submitting the plan of study for approval are described in the Policies and Requirements page and in the ISE Graduate Manual - students should review these requirements carefully. The plan of study is developed in conjunction with the student’s advisor and is approved by the student's committee and the ISE Graduate Program Director.
The master’s degree programs consist of at least 30 credit hours and include core, required courses, ISE electives, and general technical electives. In addition, some students, particularly those holding a non-engineering B.S. or non-technical B.A. degrees, should be prepared to take preparatory courses, if necessary, that are not counted for graduate credit.
Students are required to take either one of the following two courses.
| Number | Title |
|---|---|
| ISE 5104 | Operations Research |
| ISE 5405 | Optimization |
Note: ISE 5405 is a pre-requisite for several more advanced courses; students interested in such courses should thus not take ISE 5104.
Select at least 4 courses from the following list:
| Number | Title |
|---|---|
| ISE 5204 | Manufacturing Systems |
| ISE 5034 | Math Probability and Statistics |
| ISE 5424 | Simulation |
| ISE 5015 | Management of Organizational Systems |
| ISE 4214 | Lean Manufacturing |
| ISE 5474 | Statistical Quality Control |
| ISE 5654 | Human Factors System Design |
| ISE 5814 | Systems Dynamics Modeling of Socio-Technical Systems |
Complete additional three courses, which can be any combination of additional courses from the list above and/or from pre-approved electives.
Complete up to 10 hours is ISE 5994 Research and Thesis.
Complete at least five additional courses, which can be any combination of additional courses from the list above and/or from pre-approved electives.
Pre-approved electives are listed in the Ph.D. concentrations on the ISE web site. Any of these pre-approved electives can count towards a degree in the General Industrial Engineering M.S. degree.
Ph.D. concentrations: https://ise.vt.edu/academics/graduate/phd.html#concentrations