Importance of ABET accredition?

<p>for engineering yes, for cs no.</p>

<p>"for engineering yes, for cs no."</p>

<p>Again, ceteris paribus, you may as well go to the ABET accredited program unless you have a good reason to do otherwise. Why? Because then you can be sure you're not missing out on anything the ACM thinks you should have exposure to.</p>

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These are the sorts of posts that made me put Sakky on ignore.

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<p>Uh, your 'ignore screen' seems not to be working, for you continue to reply to my posts. Perhaps you misconfigured it.</p>

<p>I said it before, and I'll say it again. If you don't like my posts, then don't read them. Nobody is holding a gun to your head. If you choose to read them, then you have nobody to blame but yourself. </p>

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The obvious difference is that NCEES doesn't have a Bioengineering exam, so you couldn't get licensed even if you wanted to.

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<p>Uh, sure you could. You could be licensed as a generic Professional Engineer, which is what is offered in some states such as Massachusetts. </p>

<p>Besides, think of it this way. Some schools, i.e. Oregon State, are ABET accredited in BioEngineering. So clearly they seem to believe that accreditation has some value, even if there is no corresponding NCEES subdiscipline exam. Yet somehow, I suspect that most people would prefer to go to MIT than to Wright State for bioengineering despite the lack of accreditation, for the simple fact is that bioengineers don't really need a license. As aibarr said, no bioengineer needs to certify his designs with the state.</p>

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Quote:
In some states, it can be illegal to use a degree from an institution that is not accredited by a nationally recognized accrediting agency, unless approved by the state licensing agency.
Diploma Mills and Accreditation - Accreditation</p>

<p>Quote:
The use of unaccredited degree titles is legally restricted or illegal in some jurisdictions.[24] Jurisdictions that have restricted or made illegal the use of credentials from unaccredited schools include Oregon,[25][26] Michigan,[27] Maine[28], North Dakota[26]New Jersey,[26] Washington[25][29], Nevada,[25] Illinois,[25] Indiana,[25] and Texas.[30] Many other states are also considering restrictions on unaccredited degree use in order to help prevent fraud.[31]
Educational accreditation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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<p>That's not what we're talking about. These references are to a completely different form of accreditation than what we are talking about here. There's a difference between a general schoolwide accreditation and ABET engineering accreditation. Many schools are accredited as a school, but do not offer accredited engineering programs in certain disciplines.</p>

<p>Besides, I'll put it to you this way. Does anybody seriously believe that it is somehow illegal or legally restricted to 'invoke' a Materials Science & Engineering degree from Stanford, despite the fact that it is not ABET-accredited? Does anybody want to accuse the Stanford MSE program of being a 'diploma mill'? Are all of those people who graduate from that program 'frauds'? </p>

<p>I think a far more reasonable position would be that the importance of ABET accreditation is limited. Nobody seriously believes that Boise State is better than Stanford at MSE, accreditation or no.</p>

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aibarr was speaking about mechanical/electrical/plumbing engineers in the context of MEP engineering (buildings) and not each of the broad disciplines on their own.

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<p>I am well aware of that. I also want to make sure that nobody gets confused. Let's be honest. The vast vast majority of EE's and ME's do not work in MEP-style construction.</p>

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Perhaps it's the fields you're working in that you wouldn't see an EE or ME requiring a PE? My girlfriend is an electrical engineer starting a job with the city water and power organization, and they want her to get her PE within a few years of starting.

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<p>See that, ken285 and aibarr? Right there is precisely the problem - people are confused. That's why clarification is necessary. I think a facepalm is uncalled for. </p>

<p>Again, sure, if you work within the MEP context, then you may need licensing. But the vast majority of EE's don't do that. They work in the semiconductor/computer/electronics industry. Or they work in the IT/software/Internet space. Or they work in telecom/datacom. Or, if they branch out, they nevertheless usually branch out to another industry that also doesn't require accreditation, such as the auto industry, or aerospace.</p>

<p>I said it before and I'll say it again. Accreditation is necessary only for certain disciplines and certain jobs. If you're not going to have one of those jobs, then you never need accreditation. To be fair, many people don't know what kind of job they will want or even get, and so accreditation may be nice because it can broaden the pool of jobs that are available to you. But the lack of accreditation is far from fatal in most engineering disciplines.</p>

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See that, ken285 and aibarr? Right there is precisely the problem - people are confused. That's why clarification is necessary.

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<p>That was the entire point of my previous post. Your post had suggested that you do not need a PE to succeed in any mechanical or electrical engineering field, which would mislead the uninformed. You DO need it for some jobs, but there was never the implication that it would be for most jobs.</p>

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The obvious difference is that NCEES doesn't have a Bioengineering exam, so you couldn't get licensed even if you wanted to.

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Uh, sure you could. You could be licensed as a generic Professional Engineer, which is what is offered in some states such as Massachusetts.

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<p>Possibly some clarification is needed here. It's true that many (probably most) states have generic Professional Engineer licensing. However, it's also true that no state has a generic Professional Engineer exam. </p>

<p>In theory, an engineer with an ABET-accredited biomedical engineering degree would be licensable in any state (given also some acceptable work experience). However, the biomedical engineer would have to pass a PE exam in some alternative discipline (e.g. mechanical or environmental), since there is no biomedical PE exam. </p>

<p>However, that would obviously be a lot of trouble. And there is no compelling reason for biomedical engineers to do it, since their discipline is not regulated anyway. So in practice, it doesn't happen.</p>

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I said it before and I'll say it again. Accreditation is necessary only for certain disciplines and certain jobs. If you're not going to have one of those jobs, then you never need accreditation.

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<p>sakky has a valid point, but I will suggest that there is at least one other situation where accreditation could help. sakky likes to point to unaccredited programs at highly-regarded institutions with well-established reputations. But let's consider the opposite situation: an engineering program at a lesser-known, non-traditional institution. In this case, accreditation could add some credibility that might otherwise be lacking.</p>

<p>For example, California National University for Advanced Studies is a non-traditional school that legally confers [url=<a href="http://www.cnuas.edu/Programs/DegreePrograms/Engineering/BsEngineering.asp%5DBS"&gt;http://www.cnuas.edu/Programs/DegreePrograms/Engineering/BsEngineering.asp]BS&lt;/a> degrees in engineering<a href="with%20concentrations%20in%20ME,%20EE,%20EnvE,%20and%20CompE">/url</a>, as well as Computer Science, entirely through online study. The only admissions requirements for the engineering program are a high school diploma or GED. The whole program is completed through distance learning, with no residency needed for any classes or labs. CNUAS degrees are neither regionally nor ABET accredited; their accreditation is from DETC, a recognized national agency that focuses on distance-learning schools. </p>

<p>I think that a lot of employers and graduate schools -- who knows, maybe even sakky -- might have some reservations about the academic rigor and quality of the CNUAS engineering or computer science online BS programs. There would likely be a higher level of comfort if CNUAS degrees had the ABET "seal of approval".</p>

<p>I'd be more concerned about the reputation of the particular engineering discipline at the particular college and the grad hiring interests at that college by companies than ABET certification. </p>

<p>As sakky pointed out - there are top engineering/CS programs that happen to be not ABET certified for whatever reason yet their grads go on to excellent employment and grad school opportunities. It'll vary somewhat with the particular field of engineering.</p>

<p>Does all this suggest that, if someone gets a BA with a major in engineering from a prestigious school, there's no advantage to staying on for a fifth year to get a BE that is accredited? I'm thinking specifically of Dartmouth.</p>

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Does all this suggest that, if someone gets a BA with a major in engineering from a prestigious school, there's no advantage to staying on for a fifth year to get a BE that is accredited? I'm thinking specifically of Dartmouth.

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<p>Basically yes, assuming the student won't be considering a job that requires licensure.</p>

<p>Hmmmm. Interesting. </p>

<p>(And a potential savings of $50,000.)</p>

<p>This requires discussion with the student.</p>

<p>He is going to law, med, or b-school right out of undergrad? How about consulting, VC, i-banking, etc? If so, skip the last year. If not, he needs the degree.</p>

<p>It's been argued over and over by the same person, but the fact is that engineering firms will not hire a BA graduate.</p>

<p>I am probably going into UCSD next year as an environmental engineering major, which is in the Mechanical Engineering Department, but the ABET website says that they are not accredited. So should I switch to another major or should I stick with it even though the program is new and not accredited?</p>

<p>ABET will only certify a program once it has applied for ABET certification AND has had a graduating class. (ABET wants to see the program for all 4 years) </p>

<p>If granted, all previous grads will retroactively get the ABET Certification. That is why OLIN COLLEGE (a very excellent but new engineering school) has only recently received its ABET certification.</p>

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I am probably going into UCSD next year as an environmental engineering major, which is in the Mechanical Engineering Department, but the ABET website says that they are not accredited. So should I switch to another major or should I stick with it even though the program is new and not accredited?

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<p>Call the department directly and ask for their take on it. See what their graduates do with their degrees, and what they suggest about licensure.</p>

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It's been argued over and over by the same person, but the fact is that engineering firms will not hire a BA graduate.

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<p>Oh really? Are you sure?</p>

<p>Then let me give you another example. Here are the career reports of the Physics graduates from Berkeley from the last few years. Berkeley doesn't offer a BS in Physics - they only offer BA's. Yet it seems to me that some of them did indeed obtain engineering jobs. Not only did they do so with BA as opposed to BS degrees, the degrees weren't even in engineering. </p>

<p>Career</a> Center - What Can I Do With a Major In...?</p>

<p>So if engineering firms are really not supposed to be hiring BA graduates, then apparently somebody forgot to tell that to AMD. Somebody forgot to tell that to the medical device firm Akela that. Heck, one guy was apparently even hired directly out of school as an engineering director. All of these companies apparently missed the memo. Maybe somebody should contact them to tell them that they should not be hiring those with only BA degrees for engineering positions, and that those people should therefore all be fired.</p>

<p>bump: joint ME and NE isn’t acreditted by ABET, should i not petition for a joint major and opt for a major minor?</p>

<p>very important, you need to get an ABET accredited degree to be eligeble for the Prof. Engineer license</p>

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<p>Wrong.</p>

<p>The amount of bad information given on this board is really depressing.</p>