Current high school senior here, I’m planning on attending UVA this upcoming fall. I was accepted to the school of arts and sciences, and was thinking about double majoring to receive a BACS and a degree in either Statistics/Econ, since those subjects interest me and I feel could pair well with cs.
However, I realized that the BACS degree from UVA is not accredited by ABET whereas the BSCS from the engineering school is. Since I don’t know much about the accreditation or actual job market, my main question is how big of a deal is that, will not having the accreditation limit job opportunities?
For CS, as long as it’s a solid program, it’s one of the few where the lack of ABET accreditation isn’t a big deal.
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Concur with @eyemgh . For CS, ABET doesn’t matter.
Looking at the 2020 outcomes report, the starting salaries for CS-interdisciplinary (I assume BACS but not sure) and CS-engineering, there is a significant difference in starting salaries. Not saying it has to do with ABET accreditation, but still interesting.
CS-Interdisciplinary, 147 students reporting, $89,837 avg salary, $85,850 median.
CS-Engineering, 148 students reporting, $99,326 Avg, $100K median.
I encourage OP to call the career center and ask some questions.
https://career.virginia.edu/UniversityofVirginia-Class-2020
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The salary difference probably has more to do with BA vs BS rather than ABET or not. The BS degree typically has a few extra class requirements. There is a broad range of things you czn do with a CS degree. Hardcore CS positions will look for the BS degree. However, if you use the extra space in the curriculum to double major in econ or stats because you are interested, companies that align with your interests will be more impressed by that than by an extra CS class or two.
For CS, ABET accreditation matters per se if you want to take the patent exam. Most CS graduates are not aiming for that, but if you are, then it can matter (but graduates of non-ABET-accredited CS majors can still qualify for the patent exam if they complete specific course work, including some non-CS science courses). Outside of the patent exam, ABET accreditation can indicate meeting a minimum quality standard (i.e. there will not be poor quality CS majors with ABET accreditation), but CS majors without ABET accreditation can be good (e.g. CMU, Stanford, UCB), though there can also be poor quality CS majors among the non-ABET-accredited ones.
ABET accreditation for CS requires one third of the courses or credits to be in CS, and one fourth to be in math and non-CS science. The non-CS science is why engineering-based CS majors are much more likely to have ABET accreditation, since this is often not present in liberal arts CS majors.
For the differences in the BACS and BSCS majors at UVA in particular, you can see CS Undergraduate Programs | University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science . Both majors have the same foundational required CS courses, but the BSCS major has two additional required CS courses, two additional elective CS courses, and a senior thesis requirement. While BACS majors may take additional CS courses to have a similar number of CS courses that BSCS majors are required to take, it is likely that not all do. It is likely that the BSCS majors having greater depth in CS on average, rather than ABET accreditation per se, is the reason for the higher pay levels mentioned in post #4. Note that both majors have more than one third of the credits in CS courses.