I am interested in the field but I am confused about the difference between these two. Which one has more potential and which is taken more seriously.

All of the people I know that studied industrial distribution are basically in technical sales roles. From what I gather, ID is like a watered down version of industrial engineering (my major). I don't know about which one would be taken more seriously. I wouldn't think that would matter anyway. It's about what you are capable of doing and do you have the ability to quickly learn once you're out in the real world. That will be taken more seriously than what your major is.

[This message has been edited by RP (edited 2/12/2013 11:42p).]

One more thing before any ID major jumps all over me. I'm not saying industrial engineering is better than ID. Based on conversations with friends who studied ID, it's very much like industrial engineering without having to take all the hard engineering classes that IEs never use anyway.

Quick summary of ID from an ID grad:

It's a mix of business and engineering lite. ID puts you one class short of a business minor, and many of the IDIS classes are related to running a distributor (though the principles apply to any kind of business). You'll see a lot of things about inventory and logistics management, a survey of MIS, lots about pricing and dealing with relationships between supply chain partners. The engineering-type classes are not particularly challenging, and very "applied". By that, I mean that there are some fundamentals classes like materials and manufacturing techniques, but the upper level classes are focused on learning the basics in industries that tend to hire a lot of ID grads (power transmission and electrical in particular).

As far as employment, there are generally two tracks. One is technical sales, which is probably the most common career. The other is loosely termed "operations", and means dealing with physical inventory, warehouse processes, and the like. There are a ton of options though, which is the hallmark of ID. Personally, I started out in software development and then moved into financial analysis less than two years out of school. Getting back to the options thing, many companies recruit out of ID. They have large career fairs and tons of internships. If you want to branch out from some of the traditional employers of TAMU ID students (off the top of my head, Gexpro, Womack, DXP, and Crawford are annual attendees at the career fairs), you can compete with IE and other engineering majors and business in general or supply chain in particular.

In terms of payoff for effort, ID is pretty easy (although I heard they were going to add MATH 151 and 152 and PHYS 218 and 208 to the required curriculum) and average starting salaries were around 52K when I graduated.

[This message has been edited by Ulrich (edited 2/13/2013 9:02p).]

I was IE, but when I was recruiting I was competing for some jobs with both of these majors (consulting and operations). For me, I would give the nod to ID. I know a ton of ID majors that have done well in sales and other jobs. One of the best things about ID is the connection to the engineering school (a very well respected school) and its sheer size. Its big enough to have its own career fair and it seems the faculty are very good. I personally think the curriculum changes of making the math and sciences is stupid because you won't be getting credit for having an "engineering" degree but you'll be taking a lot of the same early courses. SCM is part of the business school and not a huge priority for them and Mays does not get all that much respect outside of accounting.

Consulting and sales might give the nod to IDs but if you go into manufacturing or systems planning then IDs aren't even considered really.

It's all up to you. Since you're deciding between ID and SCM though I would most definitely go with ID. More flexibility and connections.