Do employers care about abet accreditation?

[Connor]

I'm planning on majoring in either CS or Software Engineering, but the software engineering program is abet accredited. Will employers care?

 

[Vanadium 50]

You want to know if an unspecified employer with an unspecified job cares about which degree you get from an unspecified institution? I guess the answer is "maybe".

 

[Dr Transport]

yes, they care... and that is why schools spend large amounts of money to stay accredited, if they don't then their graduates tend not to get jobs.

 

[Connor]

yes, they care... and that is why schools spend large amounts of money to stay accredited, if they don't then their graduates tend not to get jobs.

I'm sorry I gave the wrong information. The software engineering program at the university I was going to transfer to is not abet accredited. but they offer it anyway. Will that matter to an employer as to getting a CS degree that is abet accredited?

 

[Dr Transport]

depends on the company, the last two aerospace companies I worked for required that engineers have ABET certified degrees, if the computer science department is within the engineering school, then, yes, they'll care.

ABET is just a program that ensures that certain modern standards are adhered to, for example, in EE that you are not using 30 year old oscilloscopes in the lab courses, stuff has to be up to date. They also look at all the supporting coursework to ensure that there is enough physics in the physics courses and that the text is appropriate.

 

[Dr.D]

A key factor for ABET accreditation has long been the teaching of engineering design, not simply engineering science. Specifically, this means having students work on problems/projects that do not have unique solutions, but that require some judgment calls in developing the solution. Many schools have thought that they were offering an engineering degree, only to have ABET tell them that they were simply teaching engineering science, not engineering.

 

[jasonRF]

I don't know the answer to your question, but I just looked on the ABET site and only 31 schools came up in a search of accredited bachelor programs in software engineering. So there are not very many around. What are the job placement and salary statistics for the program at your school? Your school should have data on that to help you determine if the program delivers the outcomes you are looking for, and allow you to compare it to the computer science program (which I presume is accredited?).

EDIT: The next paragraph is only tangentially relevant so feel free to skip it. I would delete it but it feels dishonest to do so.

Of course there are many more accredited programs in computer science than in software engineering, although it is pretty easy to find schools with unaccredited cs programs even though their engineering departments are accredited: Stanford, U Washington, Cornell, and U California San Diego were examples that took just a couple minutes to find. Now, all of those schools are well known and their graduates have good job placement. Perhaps there are some companies that would not hire their graduates due to a lack of accreditation, but in most cases it would probably be the company's loss. The question in my mind would be how much it matters for programs at universities with lesser reputations.

Jason

 

[Jody]

I know some internships won't hire without it. I think it's useful to consider because internships could be good leverage for future opportunities.

The companies I worked for didn't ask about it although maybe they did the research on their own or the reputation of the school was good enough.

 

[Vanadium 50]

gonna

Is not English. Is not even slang. If you want people to take you seriously, you really need to stop using this.

You want to know if an unspecified employer with an unspecified job cares about which degree you get from an unspecified institution? I guess the answer is "maybe".

You still haven't clarified any of this. And you expect good advice? The answer will be very different if you are developing software for the medical or aviation industries or designing an app to better share cat videos on your phone.

 

[Connor]

Is not English. Is not even slang. If you want people to take you seriously, you really need to stop using this.
You still haven't clarified any of this. And you expect good advice? The answer will be very different if you are developing software for the medical or aviation industries or designing an app to better share cat videos on your phone.

Well tomorrow I'm going to call the school I'm interested in and ask them.