sakky

But do they, really? As we all know, many of the top bioengineering departments, which are arguably the fastest growing of all of the engineering disciplines, are not accredited. Berkeley's bioengineering program has existed for over a decade, yet has never been accredited, and isn't pursuing accreditation. Stanford's petroleum engineering/energy resources engineering program - the #2 ranked such program in the country according to USNews - is not accredited, despite the fact that petroleum/earth resources engineering is somewhat similar to civil engineering. Similarly, both Berkeley's and Stanford's materials science & engineering programs are not accredited.

Look, the fact is, while those schools are accredited in 'traditional' engineering disciplines, if those schools were to not have such accreditation, it wouldn't really matter. Very few Stanford or Berkeley EE's will ever need accreditation, as the vast majority of them will end up working for high-tech firms in Silicon Valley.

What I mean is that I wonder how much it will actually change the way that students pursue their educations in order to pursue their careers. Like I said before, most engineering students don't care about accreditation now, so why would they care in the future?

Hence, you may be correct in that some schools may eventually drop their accredited engineering bachelor's degrees. However, I would contend that - with the notable exception of civil engineers - most students would then simply earn the unaccredited engineering bachelor's and then proceed directly to the workforce just as they do now. Hence, little would actually change as far as actual employment patterns.

Ejhfast

I agree, but from my own vantage point, I would make very different decisions were I not limited to an ABET accredited engineering BS. For one thing, I would take none of my schools "STS" classes, nor any of the hard sciences unrelated to my particular discipline. These requirements I would replace with humanities classes of more interest to me -- mostly philosophy.

To me, the opportunity cost of an undergrad engineering degree is high; it seems overly vocational. Eliminating ABET requirements would please me to no end...

Corbett

If there is some reasonable possibility that their degrees will be deemed legally inadequate for licensing purposes, then yes, engineering departments do care.

For example, you mention that bioengineering and materials science degrees are commonly unaccredited. That's true, but it's also true that those engineering disciplines have never been subject to licensing laws, in any US state. So it's impossible -- even in theory -- for non-ABET degrees in these disciplines to be perceived as inadequate by licensing boards. In this situation, a school with a good reputation can safely forego accreditation (though some get it anyway -- presumably because they perceive it as important).

You also mention Stanford's highly ranked petroleum engineering program. That's not really an exception either, because Stanford only offers petroleum engineering degrees at the graduate level (the cited ranking is from the US News grad school ranking). Graduate degrees have not traditionally been ABET-accredited (as noted elsewhere in this thread).

Stanford recently introduced a non-ABET BS program in "energy resources engineering", but this appears to be a very small and unconventional "niche" program. It wouldn't fit under the ABET accreditation requirements for petroleum, civil, or any other traditional discipline.

Corbett

I'm sure you're right. But "the vast majority" isn't 100%, and "very few" isn't 0%. California administered 485 Electrical PE exams in 2007, and it seems possible that Stanford and Berkeley grads were among the candidates.

But even if they weren't, that's not the point. The point is that Stanford and Berkeley engineering administrators care about ABET accreditation, even if most of their students don't. The EE departments at both schools have maintained ABET accreditation since 1936, so it apparently matters to somebody.

Corbett

Because there will be a big difference between the unaccredited "BA in engineering studies" that some schools will offer, and the accredited "BS in engineering" that other schools will offer. You can already see this difference in action at schools like Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and Dartmouth, which currently offer both types of degrees. The unaccredited BA is much less specialized, and offers much more scope for courses or double majors outside math, engineering, and physical sciences.

There will be actual changes, because students will get to decide whether they want to study "engineering" or "pre-engineering" at the undergraduate level. Some top schools will probably go exclusively to the "pre-engineering" route. The concept of "pre-engineering" may seem unfamiliar now, but it will likely enter your vocabulary in the future, just like "pre-law" or "pre-med".

And this is an (unsolicited) example of the kind of engineering student who will be affected -- in a positive way.

sakky

But that's precisely my point. Sure, it doesn't fit ABET accreditation requirements, but I doubt that most employers or most students really care. After all, like you alluded to, this isn't some scrub school we're talking about here. This is Stanford we're talking about. Somehow I doubt that there are many oil companies that would not consider hiring a Stanford Earth Resources Engineering grad just because he isn't accredited

In fact, this whole point actually ties into something that we had discussed in another thread. Most graduate engineering degrees are currently unaccredited, and hence those people who obtain such graduate degrees but came from non-engineering undergrad programs will never be formally "accredited". But that doesn't seem to deter anybody. For example, I can immediately come up with a quite large list of people who earned graduate degrees in engineering from MIT, but are still not "accredited" because their undergrad degrees were in a science or mathematics. For example, I know one guy who is completing his PhD in engineering at MIT and has been presented with a surfeit of job offers from many of the top engineering firms in the world, despite the fact that he doesn't have an "accredited" degree. {His undergrad degree was in physics.}

So, again I ask, with the exception of civil engineering, how many employers or students honestly really care about accreditation? I would argue that they care far more about the overall reputation of the school. I'll pose two questions to the peanut gallery. Suppose that the states were to accredit bioengineers in the future. How many people would turn down MIT, Stanford, or Berkeley for, say, Oregon State just because the latter is accredited in bioE?

Well, what I meant is whether it would matter to somebody who is actually important. Now, that may be harsh, but the fact is, administrators, frankly, aren't that important in terms of actually dictating who gets hired and why.

Look the truth of the matter is that what most engineering students really care about is getting a good job. Hence, the employers have real power - far more power than do the administrators. And as long as most engineering employers don't care about accreditation, neither will most students. Administrators can do whatever they want, but if employers don't care, then it doesn't really matter.

Well, I suppose that could be construed as a change.

But what I was thinking about is whether many students really would be convinced to attend a school that they normally would not choose just because it offers one of these new accreditations. For example, suppose that MIT or Stanford choose not to offer master's level accreditation, but some no-name school does. How many people would turn down MIT or Stanford for that no-name school? How many employers would stop hiring from MIT or Stanford in favor of that no-name school? Again, with the exception of civil engineers, I think the number would be quite small.

aibarr

University administrators set curricula, so if university administrators care about ABET requirements, I don't understand why employers' hiring practices are going to somehow influence the very insular academic world and change university officials' minds about what degree programs should include and what they shouldn't...

Y'know what? Let's just wait and see what happens. I'm tired of trying to predict the future. I think this'll have good effects on all of engineering, and I think it's the beginnings of a change in society's view on the profession of engineering, but none of us is 100% certain about anything that hasn't happened yet.

Further attempts to refute my observations will be met with silence, not because I will agree with the future refutations, but mainly because I think I have a stress fracture in my foot, and I also have a meeting at three, and lots of work to do.

Corbett

Hmm, that only seems like one question. But I think that the question is moot, because in the (unlikely) event that states began licensing bioengineers in the future, then MIT, Stanford and Berkeley would pursue ABET accreditation in that field.

Actually, I think that a degree in "energy resources engineering", even from Stanford, would provoke questions from a potential oil company employer. Nobody would know what the heck it was. A potential employer would probably want to know: is this different from a "regular" Petroleum Engineering degree? And "regular" ultimately means "ABET".

In this case, the lack of an ABET degree wouldn't necessarily disqualify the applicant -- especially right now, when the supply of "regular" PetEs is tight. But the employer's comfort level with this unusually named degree would probably be higher if it also happened to be ABET-accredited in Petroleum Engineering.

Probably not. Although it may seem counterintuitive, the bigger impact of master's-level accreditation is likely to be at the bachelor's level.Here's a real-world situation that could arise today. Suppose you are an employer evaluating two Johns Hopkins grads, both with bachelor's degrees in electrical and computer engineering.

- One has an ABET BS degree. This includes a minimum of 45 units in ECE, 20 credits of math, 6 other engineering units, and 16 units in basic sciences. Includes requirements for design courses and minimum GPA.

- One has an unaccredited BA. This requires only 30 units of ECE, 20 credits of (less difficult) math, no other engineering, and no other sciences. No design requirement or minimum GPA.

The difference between the accredited and unaccredited ECE degrees is not trivial: it would probably concern you as an employer. It would be unusual to encounter this situation today, but if the ABET MS degree becomes common, the non-ABET BS degree will probably become common as well.

RacinReaver

Wouldn't the BA degree most likely be earned by students planning on getting their MS?

The movement towards this system actually feels a bit closer to what the exchange students I've met from Europe do. They have five years of college for undergrad, but graduate with a rough equivalent of our masters degree. If they want to keep going to school, it's just for a PhD. Personally, I'm pretty fine with our current three-tiered system, especially since five years of schooling here is a lot more expensive than five years in Europe where most of their education is publicly funded.

ken285

What makes you say that? I can see two groups of people who would consider only getting a BA degree in engineering:
1. Those who plan on going into a field other than engineering.
2. Those who plan on going into an engineering field where the lack of ABET accreditation and/or course rigor won't hurt them.

Mr Payne

I don't agree with this decision. I don't think our economy needs more credentialism. The marketplace is astonishingly good at determining which schools are better than others.

aibarr

In the case of civil engineering, which pushed this through, the marketplace banded together and essentially demanded this. If the full-engineering lift on the ban didn't work, they were going to go back in and ask for a civil-environmental-architectural engineering lift on the ban. ASCE has been pushing this for years.

RacinReaver

While I agree with #1, I'm not so sure about #2. While all my friends and myself got a BS accredited by ABET, none of us complained about the higher number of courses we had to take within our major. Most of us were actually complaining about having to take so many humanities classes and not being able to focus on the classes we really wanted to take!

Earlier it was mentioned how Hopkins and a few other schools are offering BAs in Biomed Engineering. Does anyone know any stats about graduates of that program? Like, how many decide to go on to med school instead of industry/grad school? I could definitely see the arguments for skipping out on harder math, physics, and engineering classes in order to take what are typically grade-boosting humanities classes in that case.

ken285

That's actually the case with me and my friends as well. I even took an extra few graduate design courses when I was in undergrad, but I know there are definitely some that would like more humanities courses (as one poster earlier stated). Also, didn't you go to CMU? Isn't that perceived to be one of the tech-iest schools in the country? People who go there for engineering don't go there to take Philosophy 101. It's just not representative of the general population.

Well it isn't the economy driving this decision; it's the welfare of the general public. I want to know which elected officials would actually go against increasing qualifications for engineers. How would they justify their decision to their constituents? No I'm against it because I want to save money even though it means I'm putting safety at a higher risk?

Forget about the economy. Safety first. NYC's DOB just announced that it will be spending $4M to hire engineers to study high-rise concrete construction sites and to recommend safety improvements. Sadly, this is happening as we have lost 13 people due to construction accidents in this city in 2008 so far. Nobody's going to care about spending a few extra dollars for more qualified engineer.

RacinReaver

Well, yeah, CMU is a place of a lot of anti-humanities sentiment, but many of my friends still wound up with some sort of minor outside of technical fields. Off of just my friends within my major (all 17 of us in my year) I can think of the following non-technical minors: design (while doing a BS/MS degree in four years), photography (while doing a biomed double major), psychology, technical writing (while doing an engineering and public policy double major), and I think there was a person or two that did a foreign language. One of my friends even wound up doubling with psychology (while doing his ROTC). Heck, another actually did a dual degree on the French horn. That means he didn't just double major, but completely satisfied the credit requirement for both majors independently. After graduating, he took a year to study abroad in Europe on the horn before going to grad school for materials science.

Most of us enjoyed the handful of humanities electives we took, but we just resented the requirement of the breadth/depth that was placed upon us. We'd much rather have had a more open choice of humanities classes to take. And, surprisingly, many people's hobbies were in the humanities and not technical fields. I think I was the only one of my MSE friends that would willingly write a software program.

I think by and large engineers actually have very diverse interests; it's just that they prefer to discuss them outside of a classroom setting.