American University of Beirut – Mediterraneo: BS in Industrial Engineering
“We’ve put a lot of thought into the academic programs that we are offering to students at our new campus in Pafos, Cyprus,” explains Dr. Wassim El-Hajj, the executive director of the American University of Beirut – Mediterraneo project. The undergraduate degree program in industrial engineering, for example, is not widely offered at European universities.
There is no university in Europe that offers students a chance to earn a BS in industrial engineering while also taking courses outside their major. “What we do at AUB in Beirut – and will be doing at AUB Mediterraneo,” explains David Currell, chair of AUB’s Department of English, “is offer courses focused on understanding our cultures and histories, the scientific investigation of the world around us, and analyzing our changing societies. By providing our students with a fuller educational experience, they graduate better prepared to take on today’s challenging and uncertain world and the rapid transformation of professional roles and opportunities.”
“The Industrial Engineering Program at AUB Mediterraneo will provide students with a solid technical engineering background and an in-depth understanding of business and economics,” explains American University of Beirut Professor Bacel Maddah. “This is invaluable in today’s world as it allows IE graduates to apply engineering principles in unconventional areas, especially in the emerging services economy. In addition to being able to play key coordination and managerial roles in the classical settings of manufacturing, infrastructure, and construction, IE graduates are well-positioned to work in areas such as strategy consulting, healthcare, e-commerce, and finance.” Maddah, who has been a member of the AUB faculty since 2005 and is currently chair of the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management has seen firsthand what a valuable degree a BS in industrial engineering is. “Many of our IE graduates over the past five years have assumed critical positions in a variety of industries; others have gone on to do graduate study at top US and European schools in both business and engineering.”
Celine Dibo, who graduated from the American University of Beirut in Beirut, Lebanon, with a bachelor's in industrial engineering in 2022 is now working in Dubai as a junior associate with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). She says that the bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering program that she earned at AUB prepared her well for the job market. “My studies at AUB were truly transformational. The variety and quality of courses offered was amazing. One course that I especially enjoyed was about the strategic management of technological innovation. We learned several tools during that course to be able to predict how innovations will evolve and be adopted. The theory, use cases, and projects we completed were a great preparation for my career in management consulting.”
Industrial engineering graduate Tamara El Koussa, who also earned her degree in 2022, agrees. “The industrial engineering program prepared me well for the job market,” she says. Tamara says that the skills she developed during the engineering economy course she took – skills like decision making and financial analysis – have been “invaluable.”
Another attraction of all undergraduate degree programs at AUB Mediterraneo is the chance to participate in a three-week orientation and induction program at the start of the first year. The main purpose of the three-week program is to prepare a diverse group of incoming students to take full advantage of the liberal arts education that will be offered at AUB Mediterraneo. “This will be a new experience for many – perhaps all – of our students,” explains El-Hajj. “We hear all the time from our graduates that the liberal education component of their AUB experience was especially valuable to them. We want to provide incoming AUB Mediterraneo students with the tools they need so they too can enjoy that experience,” says El-Hajj.