I’ve done a little research, and it seems that an ABET accredited program is important for an engineering undergrad degree, but not as important for a computer science degree. Can anyone confirm that? My son received a wonderful full tuition scholarship offer from a college in which the computer science program is not ABET accredited. Would love feedback on this issue and get an idea if this will hurt his changes for future employment, internships, etc.
I don’t think so. Berkeley’s CS major through the College of Letters & Sciences isn’t ABET accredited. Here’s another thread about this:
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/math-computer-science-majors/1910783-does-abet-accredidation-really-matter-in-a-computer-science-program.html
I hope not.My son is a CS major and his school is not listed at ABET accredited for CS …Stanford
ABET does not mean a thing for CS, and simply isn’t important. Many of the top CS programs, including CMU and Stanford, are not ABET accredited. ABET requires a certain amount of non-CS STEM courses, which while relevant in engineering, aren’t relevant to CS, which leads many programs not to require these courses, and therefore not have ABET accreditation.
Not generally.
It may be relevant for the patent exam.
It does set a minimum quality standard, so you may have to evaluate non ABET accredited programs more carefully. General school prestige is not an accurate indicator of CS major quality.
Good quality non ABET accredited CS majors are often that way because they lack the non CS science requirements.
ABET is not a big deal in CS. I graduated with a CS degree in 1983 and worked in the field since then, and didn’t even know there was such a thing as ABET accreditation for CS until I learned about it 4-5 years ago here on CC.
Thanks so much everyone. That’s what I was hoping. Glad for the confirmation!