<p>UCSD's Computer Engineering ranks so high, yet its not ABET accredited. Why is that? and does it really mattter?</p>
<p>For CompE, YES…the ABET accreditation matters. How about the regular EE program at UCSD??..or the regular CS program? If the EE program is accredited and does not require a bunch of “purely EE” courses, you may be able to manufacture a CompE degree out of an accredited EE degree.</p>
<p>That approach would allow you to still work in CompE positions while having the ABET designation.</p>
<p>ABET accreditation for computer engineering or computer science is not generally required per se in the computer industry, except if one is going into patent law. Of course, if one is doing computer engineering in areas closer to electrical engineering, then ABET accreditation may matter, particularly if Professional Engineer licensing is desired.</p>
<p>While some of the best known schools do not have ABET accreditation for these majors (e.g. Stanford, CMU, or L&S CS at Berkeley), many lesser known schools do get ABET accreditation for their computer science and engineering majors as an indicator of meeting a reasonable minimum standard and to distinguish themselves from some of the very limited computer science majors out there.</p>
<p>In looking at the UCSD EE program (which is accredited), there are two CS/CompE-related options: Computer Design and Software Systems. Each option requires 6 courses but 3 of those courses are in both options, so 9 courses would satisfy both EE options.</p>
<p>Once you compare the EE + both options vs. the non-accredited B.S. CompE degree, you will see that they are very similar.</p>
<p>If you HAD to attend UCSD (very good school anyway), I probably would do EE with the 2 options.</p>
<p>I betcha there are CompE students doing that path anyway because of the ABET issue. Having said that, with a school like UCSD, that ABET accreditation for CompE is probably in the works.</p>
<p>Ya…I got accepted to UCSD’s Computer Engineering, and had already deposited. Not sure how difficult is that to switch between Computer Engineering and Electrical Engineering. I was very shocked and surprised when i just realized school like UCSD, whose CE is actually quite well regarded, is not ABET accredited!</p>
<p>[Impacted</a> Majors](<a href=“http://students.ucsd.edu/academics/advising/majors-minors/impacted-majors.html]Impacted”>Capped Majors) indicates that EE is not an impacted major at UCSD.</p>
<p>If ABET accreditation is important to you (perhaps for patent law or PE licensing), then doing EE with the computer engineering options as described above would be worth exploring.</p>
<p>Why would you need PE licensing for Computer Engineering? My uncle has PE licensing with Mechanical Engineering but he never used it. I think it matters for Civil or Structure engineering.</p>
<p>You don’t need a PE for comp eng. Some EE jobs require but even most EE’s don’t need it. I think ABET accreditation matters for computer hardware jobs and if that’s what you want to do I would do EE. ABET doesn’t matter at all for the software industry but then again you will be better off with CS for that. I would do cpe only if want both hardware/software knowledge</p>