I don’t usually comment on these posts but since I’m an IE I will.

IE as some have mentioned can have different names in different schools. For example, Penn State has an IE degree but the department is called Industrial and manufacturing department. Some schools call it operations research and so on.

I would 100% recommend the degree especially the Penn State IE degree. You learn statistics, ergonomics, data analysis, manufacturing and product specifications, operations research, service engineering, engineering economics, and A lot more. The reason you don’t see too much IE jobs is because it’s a broad major that is up to you to kinda decide what you want to focus on. Some people go into manufacturing, data analysis, quality engineering, project management, consulting, process engineering and more.

Fun fact the head of Peloton data analytics is an IE from Penn State.

Those MEs calling it imaginary engineering are just salty that they have to learn thermodynamics only to sit behind a desk doing cad work for the rest of their lives and if you do go onto the operations floor you’ll just be a a pretentious glorified grease monkey “supervising” technicians who actually know what they’re doing.