<p>Hello I am a student attending California State University, San Bernardino, and I am looking at the CS and Computer Engineering programs at CSUSB. I notice their CS program is ABET accredited but the Computer Engineering program is not. Think is a problem for me since I think I like Engineering better than CS. I am asking for suggestions about what I should do. I have a 3.34 GPA with most of my lower division courses complete. What should I do, should I try to transfer to another University or should I go for this program? Any insight or advice would be greatly appreciated</p>
<p>Although the program may be solid, I don’t think you should spend the time earning a degree in engineering if the school isn’t ABET accredited. I checked the ABET site because I found it hard to believe that a CSU would lack ABET/EAC engineering, but you’re exactly correct. Strange, I wonder why they haven’t applied for (or been granted) this accreditation. If I were in your position, I would look at other schools. I figure if you’re going to put in so much time and work in a CompE degree, why not make sure it has as much accreditation as possible so you’re not limiting yourself.</p>
<p>Well I think I am going to choose CS as my major since that is ABET accredited and have that as my back up plan. My main goal right now would probably be to try to transfer to CSUF or CSU POMONA but I will have the CS as a back up plan.</p>
<p>Check with the school itself just to be sure if that is your only deciding factor. Sometimes a school falls off of accreditation due to something that is really bureaucratic or relatively trivial, like an assessment was due that didn’t make a deadline, or an assessment was done but something was awry and they have to reapply (e.g. a course was dropped due to a lost faculty member that hasn’t been replaced). It can be quite temporary. What a website shows and what may be fact can also differ, depending upon when things are updated. And errors are made sometimes as well.</p>
<p>I am not familiar with ABET per se but have done accreditation reviews and sat on accreditation committees for AASCB (business school accreditation).</p>
<p>ABET accreditation is most important in engineering areas where Professional Engineering licensing is an issue (mainly civil). It is less commonly looked for in computer science or computer engineering – but it may become relevant if one graduates from a lesser known school, since it indicates that the curriculum meets some minimum quality standard. No one seems to question the lack of ABET accreditation for computer science bachelor’s degrees from well known schools like Berkeley (BA degree) and Stanford, but CSU San Bernardino is not so well known.</p>
<p>At CSU San Bernardino, the computer science and computer engineering degree programs have a lot of overlap; if you are concerned about getting an ABET-accredited degree, you can choose computer science, but use the major electives for the hardware oriented courses you are presumably interested in.</p>
<p>If there’s an ABET-CAC accredited CS program, and the CompE program isn’t ABET-EAC accredited, you might as well do CS. You can always transfer later (actually, I don’t know whether that’s true) provided you do well.</p>