Any Opinions on the New Online BSEE at Stony Brook

[robbrown784]

For anyone unfamiliar, here is the program I'm talking about.
Its a fully online BSEE at Stony Brook, aimed at students who've already done most of their lower level courses elsewhere.

The website says they're expecting abet accreditation when the first class graduates in 2014. Does anyone have any compelling reason to to believe this will or won't happen? It looks pretty legit but I'm still skeptical. Wouldn't that make this the first online engineering degree to be abet accredited?

Anyone happen to know if the students and faculty of the normal Stony Brook EE program take it seriously?
Any clue what employers or grad schools will think of it? Even assuming it turns out to be an excellent program and has no problems with abet, will the reputation of online degrees still make it worthless?

For someone choosing between this and a particularly lousy regular school, would this program make sense? Or is a bad regular program still better than any online program?

 

[milhous]

Very cool that they're offering full degrees online now. Stony Brook is a flagship school in the SUNY system, and their math and science programs are highly-respected. As with offering any new degree program, they cannot become accredited until the first class graduates. A similar thing happened at my alma mater when they created a law school. The ABA couldn't accredit the school until the first class graduated.

I didn't go to SUNY, but wouldn't be worried. I also saw that Oregon State's offering a BS in CS online and is the exact same degree as being an on-campus student.

I wish there were online Physics degree programs, but seems impractical due to the need to conduct hands-on labs, etc.

 

[THam]

Opinion of Stonybrook online BSEE

I have taken several of these courses to date. I found them to be rigorous ( I wasn't looking for an easy ride). The only issue I have is that each professor seems to choose their own video production method so they lack consistency. One course may have a look similar to an online MIT course with an image of a professor standing at a white board, another course may show just the image of the white board... Also in some videos it was difficult / impossible for me to hear questions asked by students in the class. Most of the time that didn't matter - you could figure out the question based on the response.

All in all, Stonybrook offers a really good value and comprehensive courses. I figure they will smooth out the minor wrinkles over time.

I have tried other online (BSEET) programs and found Stonybrook to be superior.

Hope this helps.