Operations research boom reaches Rice
Students outside the engineering department and those especially averse to fulfilling their Group III distribution requirements may be unaware of the growing presence of operations research – or even what it is.
Rice Engineering launched new degree offerings in Operations Research (OR), a branch of applied mathematics, this semester. This addition has been foreshadowed since July 2022, when the department changed its name from the Department of Computational and Applied Mathematics to Computational Applied Mathematics and Operations Research.
The B.A. in OR under the then-CAAM department became a B.S. degree with the same graduation requirements. Later, a replacement B.A. was introduced alongside a new OR minor, to be available for students beginning this semester.
Andrew Schaefer, a professor of operations research, defines the field of operations research “as mathematical and rigorous approaches to complex decision making,” though he stressed that was a simplification.
“This is just the fourth year that we’ve had a major called operations research, but there’s always been a few classes or an aspect of it within engineering ... Rice pioneered a lot of the methods and software in particular over the years, but, for whatever reason, it hasn’t happened [until now],” Schaefer, a ‘94 Rice graduate in Computational and Applied Mathematics said.
Information provided by Schaefer showed that students studying OR are in high demand; the Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts a 23% growth in demand for such majors from 2021-31. To put the market for these graduates into context, the projected growth in electrical engineering and mechanical engineering jobs ranges from 2-4% over the same time period. In May 2023, CBS News reported that the major with the highest salary four years after graduating is Operations Research, with salaries that are nearly twice those of business majors.
However, students are drawn to the field for more than the financial or career opportunities. Daniel Suarez, a Martel College senior working on a B.S. in OR said he found the field interesting because of its applications and unique problem-solving features.
“When someone tells you it’s a 300-level applied math class, you don’t think [Introduction to Operations Research is] going to be fun, but it was,” Suarez said. “A professor gives you a problem with words, and you have to find a way to translate that word problem into a mathematical equation. And that just clicked with me.”
Suarez is also involved in DecisionLab, an opportunity for students in OR to apply their studies to problems around Rice.
“Last semester, we had around 30 students matched into five teams,” Suarez wrote in an email to the Thresher. “The projects were an advanced software to schedule meetings, roommate matching, a travel itinerary optimizer, exam scheduling and Knotmates (an app that matches people with similar interests on campus).”
Even for those who aren’t studying operations research as a main focus, the field has someone to offer for everyone. Snikitha Kassey, a Martel College sophomore who recently declared the OR major, said that the expansion of the degree offerings only diversified the kinds and numbers of students drawn to the course.
“They made a B.A. for OR, [and] that’s actually why I even considered it,” Kassey said. “It was just so much more reasonable for me to do it now. This degree itself is just so, so diverse. And you can get into it through anything … I think you should definitely give it a shot before you decide that it can’t help you.”
The value of this training lies not only in its practical applications to careers, but in its examination of ethics and life improvement within companies and organizations, according to Schaefer.
“Historically, [OR] has been maximizing profit, subject to a whole bunch of complicated restrictions, but in the last couple decades, we’ve been trying to maximize life expectancy, quality of life, fairness,” Schaefer said. “I think that those are things that really appeal to Rice students — and being able to see just how versatile and interesting the models are.”
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