By: Mary Ogidigben, (Carmen Haseltine, Liz Scaria, Veronica White)
In past years, projects have aimed to increase high school outreach in a variety of ways, including school programs, summer programs, and other activities. A few such projects were also proposed to the Ambassador Program this year. Our project defines a broader INFORMS strategic initiative with the goal to create a template that can be used across different institutions and INFORMS Chapters for grades 9-12 outreach activities. The aim was for underrepresented high school students to be exposed to and possibly become interested in operations research or other STEM fields. When getting started with the 2022 INFORMS DEI Ambassador High School Outreach Strategic Initiative, we asked ourselves: “How did we end up in operations research?”. Our answers demonstrated that each of our journeys in finding operations research was a bit different, yet, we did notice a few common factors.
- We didn’t search for operations research;
- We didn’t understand what operations research was;
- We didn’t know the interdisciplinary nature of operations research.
Therefore, we would like this blog post to be a resource for students interested in learning more about operations research.
What is operations research?
INFORMS defines "Operations research as the scientific process of transforming data into insights to make better decisions.” Essentially, operations research utilizes technical skills to assist with difficult or complex decision-making.
What problems can I work on as an operations research practitioner?
Operations research spans many problem contexts, such as societal problems, manufacturing, infrastructure, healthcare, supply chain, and marketing. Operations research is also far-reaching since all organizations and communities have processes or systems that can be improved. For this reason, operations researchers can apply their skill set in whichever problem contexts they choose.
All the members of this project team work in vastly different application areas such as criminal justice, healthcare, power systems, and election systems, but what brings us together are the mathematical, analytical, and computational tools we use to make a difference in the problems we choose to solve. These tools fall under the broad field of operations research.
Why did we decide to study operations research?
To this question, we all have wildly different answers, such as “loving the idea of modeling everything with math,” “focusing on practical issues seen in industry applications,” and “improving processes to help people.” What tied everything together was the fact that we all had a passion for improvement and optimization. We all noticed a process or system that was flawed or not as efficient as it could be and knew we needed to take the initiative to solve it.
What do we wish we knew about operations research when we were in high school?
When constructing the workshop, we wanted to address the questions we might have had when we were in high school. Below are both those questions and other ones we received from students during the high school workshop we hosted.
How can I prepare for a STEM major in college while I am in high school? The most obvious answer is to take higher-level math courses and look for programming classes –many of which can be found online for free. While this is a great first step, you may also want to look for opportunities to get involved. INFORMS now has a program where they fund selected high school students to attend the INFORMS Annual Meeting.
Is it ALL math? This is a common question to ask when learning about operations research. There is a significant amount of math involved – especially when learning different OR techniques, but once you begin to apply these techniques, you might not always be working with purely math equations. If math is as daunting to you as it was to me and the rest of my team, we are here to say, “Just don’t give up.” Modeling things with math, and communicating your results can be hard for everyone at different points. Be kind to yourself and know you can learn whatever you need with repetition, mentorship, and resources. If you're struggling, look for people and other resources that can help you succeed.
How do I know if this is for me? You have to first ask yourself what your interests are. Do you like mathematics, puzzles, or problem-solving? Do you enjoy working with diverse teams? Operations research will allow you to solve real-world problems by combining analytics and engineering with applications in many different problem contexts.
How can I be an operations researcher?
There are many different paths you can take, but typically, this would start with getting a bachelor's degree in a STEM field such as mathematics, economics, statistics, or engineering. The most typical undergraduate degree paths are ones that have industrial engineering, data analytics, systems engineering, or operations research in the degree title. A list of undergraduate and graduate programs can be found on the INFORMS Academic Program Database. Choose a program based on what excites you because you will have to take courses within the department that might not be operations research focused.
After completing a bachelor's degree, you might be able to find an analytics job. Analytics and operations research go hand in hand. Analytics deals more with data collection, management, and data science, whereas operations research focuses more on math. To pursue a traditional operations research position, many employers prefer that you have a Ph.D. A master's degree may also be valued, and sometimes a bachelor's degree in analytics and data science is enough.
What is a Ph.D., and do I have to get one?
A Ph.D. is the highest graduate degree that you can receive and is typically geared toward research. That is, to receive your Ph.D., you must present a completed research project. While it is not always necessary to have a Ph.D., as mentioned before, a lot of job positions for OR practitioners mention that they either require or prefer the qualification of a Ph.D.
If you’re not sure if you want to work in research, you can look for undergraduate research jobs at your college. If you’re able to pursue such opportunities, these are a good tryout for how much you enjoy research.
If you’re not sure whether more school is a feasible option for you, keep in mind that while not all schools and programs pay their Ph.D. students, a good number of them do. For the schools that do pay, they will typically cover your tuition and provide you with a stipend for living expenses. In this way, you can look at your Ph.D. program as your first job.
BONUS TIP: Not all Ph.D. programs require you to have a Master’s degree to apply!
Let’s say I get a graduate degree in operations research, then what?
As an operations researcher, you could do anything your heart desires as an expert in decision-making, data science, and mathematical modeling. Some examples are:
- Be an entrepreneur and start your own consulting agency
- Work for a think tank as a researcher
- Become a faculty member at a university in an operations research or engineering department, or a business school
- Work for a government agency modeling and directing research on societal problems
- Work at a large company to develop decision models for supply chains, staff scheduling, customer experience, etc.
For more inspiration, the INFORMS Tomorrow OR/MS has a “What’s Your StORy? Series” of video interviews on YouTube and short one-page interviews that ask a variety of operations research professionals about their research paths. Additionally, there is the INFORMS resoundingly human podcast that covers a variety of research being conducted by operations researchers.
To INFORMS members: We hope you, too, will share your journey to operations research and how you are now using it in your field and with those around you who might be interested. To learn more about contributing activity materials for high school workshops, please see our previous blog post here: Contribute your OR/MS engagement activity to the INFORMS DEI Outreach Resources bank. Contributed material and resources created as a part of the 2022 INFORMS DEI Ambassador High School Outreach Strategic Initiative are accessible to INFORMS members on the DEI resources page in the Outreach resources folder.
If you have any questions regarding our project or are deciding if operations research might be the right discipline for you, feel free to contact members of our project team:
Carmen Haseltine, haseltine@wisc.edu
Mary Ogidigben, meo5362@psu.edu
Liz Scaria, escaria128@gmail.com
Veronica White, vmwhite@wisc.edu