Hi Everyone,
Qucik question about ABET accreditation. My rising senior plans to double major in International Relations and Computer Science/Cybersecurity. Is a school not having ABET accrediation really a deal breaker for the Comp Sci part?
Thanks!
For engineering majors, for all but a few schools, yes. For CS, no.
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ok. That’s a relief. I just learned about ABET and thought this might derail my kid’s plans. Thanks!
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I asked my spouse, who was a CS major at a top 20 university (way back when) and has worked in software for 25+ years, and has been involved in hiring, conservatively 100+ people for software engineering teams (been a manager/director/VP). Until we had a kid looking at engineering majors, they had never heard of ABET 
Obviously they haven’t worked at hundreds of companies, so somebody out there may care, but consensus I have read (beyond personal experience) is it doesn’t matter for CS.
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That’s great to know. Thx for that!
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For CS, generally not. However, CS major programs (particularly at smaller schools or those with smaller CS departments) may need to be checked individually for breadth and depth of upper level CS offerings (e.g. CS courses on security and cryptography may be absent at smaller CS departments).
ABET-accredited CS major programs must require a minimum amount of math and non-CS science that many non-ABET-accredited CS major programs require less of. If the patent exam is of interest, note that a CS major can fulfill the prerequisite if it is ABET-accredited, or the student takes course work listed in the patent exam prerequisites (these courses include non-CS science).
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