Good Jobs, Bad Jobs: Designing Program Educational Objectives

Industrial Engineering programs prepare graduates for a wide range of jobs in a wide range of industries. Having faculty members choose a focus for a program, design a new program, or redesign an existing Industrial Engineering program can be contentious. This paper presents a method, using descriptions of real jobs, to help faculty members talk about the types of jobs for which the program is preparing graduates and to talk about how well the program is preparing graduates for those jobs. The method allows agreements and disagreements to emerge and provides a way to talk about them. This method has obvious applications in designing program educational objectives and in reviewing and updating program educational objectives to reflect current needs of industry. Using current job descriptions focuses these conversations and helps maintain currency of the program.