Effective problem definition, task breakdown and delegation are particularly important. Graduates should have the basic skills required to maintain their professional knowledge over the entire duration of their career. Graduates should be able to take responsibility for their own learning, including identifying weak areas in their background and seeking out resources to remedy them. This results in many graduates pursuing a variety of advanced or professional degrees subsequent to their completion of the undergraduate industrial engineering program. Hence students should graduate with a solid base of skills and knowledge upon which these further studies can build.
Examples are computer skills for problem solving, and basic literacy in science and engineering.
Graduates should be prepared to contribute as ethical and responsible members of society. Engineering graduates should be as well prepared as any other citizens to contribute as members of society. Still, the increasing importance of technology to our economic wellbeing and its pervasive presence in all aspects of our daily lives places a special burden on the engineering community to be cognizant of the social impacts of their actions. Furthermore, engineering practitioners are increasingly being called upon to address problems with broad social and ethical consequences. Students should be familiar with these issues, and be prepared to address them with integrity and empathy for all stakeholders involved.