As I mentioned in a previous post, I have been really interested in the joint business/comp-sci program offered at NEU. However, after further researching the program, I realized that the degree is not ABET accredited like similar business/compsci joint programs offered by other institutions. Is this not a big deal, or does this joint degree severely wane academically in comparison to an accredited major in the eyes of potential employers after graduation.
CS ABET accreditation doesn’t matter at all - the CS classes are sufficient enough to do any job a plain CS student is capable of. No one in the industry cares, they care about what you can do.
To be fair, that is where the combined could make a difference. If you are spending all your time academically and also splitting your personal time among two subjects, you’re likely going to develop less skills outside the classroom (on average) than the plain CS major who is doing just as much work as you but all in one discipline.
The advantage of the combined is that you can get a foot in the door to either career. When it comes to CS/Business, the most popular route is usually the business world utilizing the technical skills. CS skills in business right now are incredibly valued. For general software jobs, they won’t care much about the business side, as long as you have the CS skills they want.
Typically joint majors eliminate some electives for the two subjects and keep the core classes for both. My daughter got a combined Econ/Math degree. Had she been Econ only she would have needed to take 3-4 more Econ electives - basically the same for being only a Math major. She took the same core classes that both majors take. She did have some choices - such as which capstone class to take - the Econ or Math one. She took the econ co-op prep class because Econ owns the joint major (one school/subject is designated as the “owner” of the major.) But she also took the Math return from co-op class required of Math majors.