<p>Would a non-accredited CS BA from a LAC be sufficient for grad school/employers? For example, a BA in CS from Mount Holyoke College?</p>
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<p>A non-ABET-accredited CS degree may range from very good (e.g. Stanford, Berkeley L&S CS) to poor.</p>
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<p>Mount Holyoke’s course catalog indicates that advanced level CS courses are quite limited, although it does have algorithms and operating systems courses: <a href=“https://www.mtholyoke.edu/sites/default/files/registrar/bulletin/docs/dept_comsc.pdf[/url]”>https://www.mtholyoke.edu/sites/default/files/registrar/bulletin/docs/dept_comsc.pdf</a> . But it does not have such courses as compilers, databases, networks, and computer architecture.</p>
<p>The cross registration agreement with University of Massachusetts - Amherst may be helpful in supplementing the CS courses for a student at Mount Holyoke.</p>
<p>ABET accreditation for CS is helpful if you want to go into patent law. If you are in a non-ABET-accredited CS degree program, you can still qualify for the patent exam by taking course work as specified in <a href=“http://www.uspto.gov/ip/boards/oed/GRB_March_2012.pdf[/url]”>http://www.uspto.gov/ip/boards/oed/GRB_March_2012.pdf</a> (page 4 to 6).</p>
<p>If you go to a well-regarded college, I don’t think employers care whether your CS program is accredited by ABET. My company does mostly R&D and research, and we have quite a few people who attended LACs. We also hire math majors, other engineering majors, and science majors (as long as they have CS-related courses or experience) for CS positions, and they definitely don’t have ABET-accredited CS degrees.</p>
<p>As mentioned above, at Mount Holyoke you can take additional CS classes at UMass, which should be relatively easy to do. You can also take classes at Smith, which I think has a somewhat broader CS program and also has some EE courses that would be of interest to a CS major. Many other LACS, such as Bryn Mawr, have similar arrangements with nearby schools.</p>
<p>I looked at the CS program on the Mount Holyoke College site and although it covers 3 of the 4 traditional “CS Core” courses, the program lacks some of the more popular electives. Having said that, doing what Photodad suggested in supplementing some CS courses at U-Mass would be recommended. I think to compete with other new grads, you will need to take:</p>
<p>1) A Theory/Organization of Programming Languages course…just to round out that 4-course “CS Core” that you may need if you ever decide to go to grad school in CS.</p>
<p>2) A Database course. Most software jobs revolve around the manipulation, distribution and storage/retrieval of DATA. Databases handle the storage/retrieval.</p>
<p>3) A Computer Networks course…for the same reason as Databases but Networks handle the distribution of data.</p>
<p>Don’t worry about having to use like a U-Mass to supplement CS courses. Employers care more about that you have the know-how, not how you obtained it.</p>
<p>UMass’ career center also appears to have an arrangement where the other consortium college students are visible to recruiters: [UMass</a> Amherst - Careers Services: Information for Employers](<a href=“http://www.umass.edu/careers/employers/]UMass”>Employers : Career Development & Professional Connections : UMass Amherst)</p>
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