Although I didn’t set a specific goal for the number of posts I’ll write per week, I think at least 2 posts per week are necessary to be able to consider myself as an active blogger. I don’t want this blog to go inactive like my previous one which I neglected due to the demands of graduate studies and personal matters.

But right now, it’s quite a challenge to keep this blog afloat. Now that I’m in my 2nd to the last semester in graduate school, I’m currently taking 12 units, as opposed to 9 units in all my previous semesters. The two subjects I’m currently taking are actually remedial courses in industrial engineering, as I came from a pure math background. The other two subjects are formal graduate courses. Here are the descriptions of the subjects I’m currently taking:

  • Industrial Engineering (IE) 201: Industrial Management and Productivity
    Organization theory; management principles; managerial functions; the industrial environment; functional areas of the industrial enterprise; human behavior & motivation; Productivity concepts & techniques; methods engineering; systems & procedures; human factors engineering; value engineering
  • IE 202: Production Systems and Processes
    Introduction to production systems and functions, production processes and engineering materials
  • IE 231: Analysis of Production Systems
    Mathematical & statistical decision models for the design, operation & control of production systems. Forecasting, inventory, capacity, aggregate planning, scheduling, maintenance & cost control models
  • IE 252: Advanced Operations Research
    Advanced topics in nonlinear programming and applications; modeling of large-scale systems, interior point algorithms; project work on applications involving analytical OR models

On my OR courses

Including IE 252, I will have taken a total of 4 OR subjects for my chosen specialization in Industrial Engineering. Admittedly, I think much of the value of the previous OR subjects can already be found in the first OR course I took. The previous two courses are more of a review of this introductory OR course. With IE 252 being the last OR course, I expect to learn new concepts, primarily nonlinear programming. I sometimes wonder if this indeed should be the last topic for a master’s degree in OR. There are other advanced topics such as stochastic programming which doesn’t seem to be included in the course curriculum. That’s why I’m still contemplating about getting a PhD abroad sometime in the future.

On my master’s thesis topic

There are two paths to completing a master’s degree in IE/OR, one is taking a comprehensive examination and the other is crafting a master’s thesis. Even before I started my graduate study, I knew I would opt for the latter option. A master’s thesis is the culmination of the degree, a proof that I have acquired sufficient skills to create a worthwhile project. In fact, due to my work experience at a startup company, I already had a topic in mind: stock portfolio optimization. I was quite enthusiastic with the topic that my introductory OR term project was an application to the Philippine stock market.

However, due to the requirements of the Engineering Research and Development for Technology (ERDT) scholarship, I’m forced to pick a topic in one of its priority areas. Right now, I’m still looking for an interesting topic, but it seems that I’m siding with an OR application to energy planning. Hopefully, I’ll be able to finalize this soon for my formal thesis writing next semester.