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From a realistic perspective, if a school is not ABET accredited, at least in the US, it will be a very low ranking program and will lead to a difficult employment search.</p>
<p>The laws vary by states, but at least where I am, someone who graduates from an ABET program can legally call themselves a Graduate Engineer. Someone with a license can call themselves a Professional Engineer. Someone without an ABET accredited engineering degree or a license cannot call themselves an Engineer. The company titles I've seen for people like this include "technologist" and "technology specialist".
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ABET certification = very important.
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As a general rule, you should have a good reason for getting a non-ABET accredited degree in a technical field. Lacking such a specific (and good) reason, it's a bad idea.
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<p>The Bioengineering programs at MIT and Berkeley are not ABET-accredited, but the one at Oregon State is. Does that mean that those who want to be bioengineers should turn down MIT or Berkeley in favor of Oregon State?</p>
<p>Oh, by the way, according to USNews, MIT is ranked #5 in bio/biomedical engineering, Berkeley is around #11, and Oregon State wasn't even ranked at all. But, hey, at least the Oregon State degree is 'accredited', right? </p>
<p>Stanford's Materials Science & Engineering (MSE) program is ranked #6 in the country despite not being accredited. Does that mean I should turn down Stanford for, say, Wright State or Boise State just because their MSE programs are accredited? </p>
<p>Does that mean that somebody with a BioE degree from MIT or Berkeley, or an MSE degree from Stanford cannot call themselves an 'Engineer' (in certain states), yet somebody from Oregon State, Wright State, or Boise State can? Even so, do you think it really matters? </p>
<p>The fact of the matter is that accreditation only matters if you want to be licensed, yet the fact is, licensing doesn't matter to the vast majority of engineers. By far the most populous engineering discipline, and I know scores of EE's from places like MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, and other top schools, none of which have ever cared about licensing. The same can be said for ME's, ChemE's, BioE's, MSE's, CompE's, AeroE's and other engineering disciplines where you are producing a product that is potentially sold across state lines (i.e. a computer, a car, an airplane, a pharmaceutical, a chunk of software, etc.) and is therefore exempt from state licensing laws, and that comprises the vast majority of engineering jobs. </p>
<p>The only engineering disciplines in which licensing seems to matter is Civil Engineering and the highly related Structural and Environmental Engineering.</p>