<p>ABET accreditation matters a lot for engineering majors and colleges...does the same apply to CS? i'm wondering b/c i am interested in doing CS at a LAC</p>
<p>Where are you going? Alaska? Almost all CS programs are ABET Accredited. They just don’t accredit BA in CS (which is a shame…)</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/engineering-majors/511315-how-important-abet-accreditation-cs.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/engineering-majors/511315-how-important-abet-accreditation-cs.html</a></p>
<p>To make a long story short:</p>
<p>It’s about as important as it is for other engineering programs in terms of recognizing quality, and less important than for other engineering programs in terms of accreditation, etc.</p>
<p>As has already been pointed out, most BS programs in CS are accredited; BA programs in CS from name-brand schools don’t need accreditation. BA CS programs from other places… do your homework. Non-accredited BS programs… danger…</p>
<p>Most CS programs are not accredited.</p>
<p>Just looking at Illinois CS programs (From [Untitled</a> Page](<a href=“http://www.abet.org/AccredProgramSearch/AccreditationSearch.aspx]Untitled”>http://www.abet.org/AccredProgramSearch/AccreditationSearch.aspx) )</p>
<p>Computer Science:
University of Illinois at Chicago ,IL
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ,IL
Illinois Institute of Technology ,IL
Illinois State University
Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville ,IL</p>
<p>That’s it. Missing are Northwestern, Univ. of Chicago, DePaul, SIUC, NIU, and many smaller programs.</p>
<p>so if some student graduates from northwestern with a BS in computer science, he’s screwed? make no sense…</p>
<p>there are many LAC’s that offer B.S.'s in CS but very few of them (almost none amongst non-engineering LAC’s) are ABET accredited</p>
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</p>
<p>Let me proffer a counterexample. The Mathematics with Computer Science subspecialty (course 18C) within the mathematics department is generally considered to be the ‘pure’ computer science program at MIT, as opposed to the EECS (course 6) program which is a blend of both computer science & engineering. MIT students who major in math (in all subspecialties) actually make higher (shockingly!) starting salaries than do those majoring in EECS, which strongly indicates that those in the 18C subspecialty make very high salaries (as I suspect those majoring in pure math don’t make that much). </p>
<p>[MIT</a> Mathematics | Course 18C Mathematics with Computer Science](<a href=“http://www-math.mit.edu/academics/undergrad/major/course18c.html]MIT”>Course 18C Mathematics with Computer Science)</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.mit.edu/~career/infostats/graduation08.pdf[/url]”>http://www.mit.edu/~career/infostats/graduation08.pdf</a></p>
<p>Yet the 18C program is both unaccredited - for it is strictly speaking a mathematics degree - and is a BS degree, for MIT does not offer any other type of degree at the undergraduate level.</p>
<p>I think I misspoke. I meant to say that either a BA or a BS from a name-brand school is alright. Accreditation is only worth anything if (a) you need it to get licensed or (b) it says something about your program that somebody somewhere may not already know.</p>
<p>For instance, at my institution, the CS program is accredited by ABET (well, it’s a collaboration between them and the ACM, but let’s not get too technical about this). If I move to, say, the pacific northwest, the ABET accreditation may help people there recognize that my degree is compatible with what they expect local graduates to have.</p>
<p>Generally speaking, I would be more wary of unaccredited BS CS programs than I would be of BA CS programs. Why? Well, BA programs don’t seem to me to call for it, but a BS program… well, that’s when you need to ask yourself why they don’t have it when others do. The answer for Podunk Polytechnic may be different from the answer for MIT. Something to think about.</p>
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No. </p>
<p>Professional accreditation can be very important in fields that are subject to state licensing laws. In this case, an accredited degree often has more legal value than an unaccredited degree. For example, you typically need an appropriately accredited degrees to pursue a career in medicine or law. And you typically need an ABET degree to pursue a Professional Engineer’s license.</p>
<p>But computer science is a completely unregulated field. So there is no legal advantage to an ABET vs. a non-ABET computer science degree. It’s common for universities to hold ABET accreditation in engineering (where it matters), but not in computer science (where it doesn’t). </p>
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There are pluses and minuses to studying computer science at a LAC, but the presence or absence of ABET accreditation should not be a factor in the decision. Most LACs have CS programs, yet few (if any) are ABET accredited.</p>
<p>
Case (a) is inapplicable to CS, because there is no licensing. Case (b) could theoretically be applicable if the name of your school was not recognized by a prospective employer. But in practice, I don’t think ABET accreditation is widely recognized in the CS world as a standard. For example, I think you will rarely (if ever) see a preference for ABET degrees in CS job postings or CS grad school admissions. I suspect that many CS degree holders would not be able to tell you, off the tops of their heads, whether or not their degree was ABET accredited.</p>
Depends on where you want to go, career-wise. If your goal is to get a potentially high paying job after graduation, a lot of companies prefer ABET, but do not require it. If you’re headed towards academia or patent agent/attorney path, I would say otherwise. I know many prestigious graduate programs require ABET accreditation, and the USPTO DEFINITELY requires ABET accreditation. Pinpoint your desired outcome & research from there.
@Mwill039, you just dredged up a post that has been inactive for over 5 years!?!
The necromancer is strong in this one