<p>I am currently a community college student here in the area and I had a question about the Computer Science program at CNU. Originally I was a Computer Science major at the community college I am attending and was planning to transfer to CNU for their Computer Science program. I was then informed the CNU’s program wasn’t ABET accredited. I had never heard of the accreditation before this but it is basically a engineering accreditation. So the adviser at my current school recommended I switch to engineering as CNU’s Computer Engineering Degree is ABET accredited and it also opened up some opportunities for other University choices for me. So I switched to Engineering even though it looked a lot tougher than Computer Science. Now, after looking into it further I found out that many Universities don’t have the ABET for their Computer Science program. So it makes me wonder if I should switch back to the Computer Science major. Honestly, I am interested in both Engineering and Computer Science and I would like to attend CNU since I am local and wouldn’t have to pay for housing and keep my student loan debt at a minimum. I think I am more interested in being a programmer or software engineer.</p>
<p>I guess what I am asking is does this ABET accreditation matter enough to where if I switched back to Computer Science it would affect my employment opportunities when I am done? Also, would you say CNU has a good Computer Science program?</p>
<p>Thank You for your opinion.</p>
<p>Your adviser is mistaken about the importance of ABET accreditation in Computer Science. All it takes is one look at the amazing schools who don’t have it (Carnegie Mellon, Harvard, etc) to realize that it’s not important. ABET accreditation is very important for engineering, but not as important for computer science, because engineers need to be certified before they can work, and that requires a body that makes sure every engineering program meets some minimum. Computer Science majors do not need to be certified before they can work, and so ABET accreditation is almost meaningless, to the point where no employer will fault you for coming from a program with no ABET accreditation.</p>
<p>Also, while I know very little about CNU’s computer science program, I do know that UVA’s program is fantastic, and Virginia Tech’s is very good. If I were you, I would shoot for those. At UVA, almost every person in the CS program has a Microsoft internship waiting for them, and lots of them go off to Microsoft employment. If I were you, I would look at the extra tuition/housing costs as investing in your future, and aim for UVA. There’s no doubt that the program at UVA is harder than at CNU, but that’s partially why they have so many opportunities.</p>
<p>My adviser was big on UVA and that is another reason why she recommended the major switch to Computer Engineering. Apparently, UVA has a program with some of the local Community Colleges of the guaranteed acceptance of engineering majors with a certain GPA (mine is 4.0 right now). </p>
<p>It would be financially easier to go to CNU, but you bring up a point about how attending UVA could open things up for me and may be worth the loans. </p>
<p>Another issue is that I am in my lower 30’s so I am of non-traditional age. I guess I am concerned about being housed with teens and twenty-year-old students at UVA. I wonder if they would work with me on that? Maybe house me with the older students?</p>