Hey CC’ers,
I’m interested in civil engineering, with possibly a concentration in environmental engineering. I know that there’s plenty of famous “engineering schools” like Harvey Mudd that have amazing programs–but, they lack ABET accreditation in the majors I’m interested in. As such, I am not applying to many of these schools. Am I giving too much weight to accreditation?
Thanks!
For civil, ABET accreditation is quite important, because civil engineers more commonly seek Professional Engineer licensing, for which ABET accreditation of one’s degree is highly useful.
For schools which offer an ABET accredited general engineering major (e.g. Harvey Mudd), you may want to investigate whether the course offerings include those which a civil engineering major would want to take.
@ucbalumnus Thanks for the reply. So, if I’m not mistaken, if a school has an accredited general engineering program and has decent civE classes, would that work out? I am mostly just interested in getting into the workforce as soon as possible.
@sparco2 I looked into ABET certification issues this past year, as my daughter began college this fall. I am no expert, but the importance of ABET certification seems to depend on the discipline. For civil engineering, my understanding is that it is very important - practically essential if you want to start work immediately. In other areas, such as industrial engineering or students planning to go to graduate school directly, far less important. Moreover, you do need to make sure that the civil engineering program is ABET certified. To my knowledge, a University itself is not ABET certified, as the certification is done by major. So a school may be ABET certified in some and not others. Hope this helps some.