We would appreciate advice about the significance of ABET accreditation for engineering majors at UC Berkeley, since some of them are not ABET accredited, or are no longer accredited (especially the joint majors).
For example, if a student graduates with the MSE / MechE joint major (previously accredited), would they be at a disadvantage in their future career compared to the ABET-accredited single major MSE or MechE?
What about the EECS major (non-accredited) or one of the joint EECS majors, if the student wants to pursue a career as an electrical engineer? Are they at a disadvantage compared to a student with an ABET-accredited EE major from another university?
I understand that ABET doesn’t matter as much for certain fields such as computer science, but I would think that it would matter for MechE and EE?
For reference, I have compiled here a list of UCB engineering majors and their current ABET status:
Single majors, currently ABET accredited:
Chemical Engineering
Civil Engineering
Industrial Engineering and Operations Research
Materials Science and Engineering
Mechanical Engineering
Nuclear Engineering
Formerly accredited joint majors (expired in 2017 or 2019):
Chemical Engineering / Materials Science and Engineering
Chemical Engineering / Nuclear Engineering
Materials Science and Engineering / Mechanical Engineering
Materials Science and Engineering / Nuclear Engineering
Mechanical Engineering / Nuclear Engineering
Single majors, never accredited (as far as I can tell):
Aerospace Engineering (this is a new major)
Bioengineering
Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences (EECS)
Energy Engineering
Engineering Math & Statistics
Engineering Physics
Environmental Engineering Science
Joint majors, never accredited (as far as I can tell):
I know that this is not the standard line here on CC, but my husband is an electrical engineer and he does lots of hiring. He has no concern about whether a school was ABET accredited. He does care whether the person he is interviewing can think through problems and answer technical questions in the interview. Coming from a “name” school like Berkeley, a lack of ABET accreditation should not be an issue for most jobs. (I don’t know about other fields! But my husband and I were just talking about this for electrical engineering yesterday.)
ETA: I should say, he is doing “high-tech” component design electrical engineering, not designing the pieces of a factory electrical engineering. Maybe it would make a difference for that?
Thanks! Thinking about what you said about Berkeley being a “name” school, I compared it with Stanford, which has only two ABET accredited majors, Civil Engineering and Mechanical Engineering. This suggests to me that accreditation might be important for a MechE, if Stanford finds it worthwhile to keep this particular accreditation current? (I do know it’s important for Civil.)
Civil and Mech E seem to be the two majors where ABET accreditation is most important to employers.
My D choose not to apply to any school that didn’t have accreditation just in case she opted to change into a major where it was necessary. (She stuck with chem e but wasn’t 100% sure when she was 17).
Just my opinion, but I worked with another engineer that was part of the engineering accreditation board, and I know how important she viewed this process from our discussions. Personally, I would not pay for my son to get a degree from a non-ABET program nor would I hire one over others from a better and qualified program. Too much time and money invested, too many qualified programs, to bother with that chance.
Other historically accredited single majors were mineral engineering and naval architecture (no longer offered, although there are buildings whose names refer to those majors).
Thanks! Do you know anything about why they allowed the accreditation of these majors to lapse?
I can make a guess at EECS (it is a very flexible curriculum and I am guessing they want to keep it that way), but I am a bit puzzled by the joint majors, since it seems like it might affect someone who wants to be a practicing MechE, for example.
In the past, it looks like the joint majors were accredited for both components of each major.
Caltech is another school of this nature; it maintains ABET accreditation for mechanical engineering only, having recently dropped it for chemical engineering and electrical engineering (it does not offer civil engineering).
EECS was very flexible when it was ABET accredited. However, looking at enrollments in upper division EE (ELENG) versus CS (COMPSCI) classes at https://classes.berkeley.edu indicates that most EECS students are doing mainly CS rather than EE.
EECS majors doing EE and the joint majors’ low enrollment may have something to do with choosing not to continue ABET accreditation for them.
Picking up this thread again, since my son is considering switching to either EECS or the MSE/EECS joint major. Neither of these are currently ABET accredited… although they were accredited in the past. His current major is MSE (ABET accredited). He has become interested in pursuing some area of EE as a career (still trying to figure out which areas interest him the most), and also still interested in MSE (and Physics) as they overlap with EE.
It seems that UCB is consistently ranked very high in EE on all lists of both graduate and undergraduate programs… but apparently makes a deliberate choice not to continue / pursue ABET for its EECS major in order to retain a high level of curriculum flexibility.
I have a couple of questions:
What sort of career outcomes in EE would be limited (or more of a hassle) because of this program being non-ABET? Specific information would be helpful.
For program planning, should he try to take all the core courses that would be included in a normal ABET EE program (going for breadth over depth)? Or does that not really matter and he can indulge himself taking just the prereqs for those things he likes best, then the advanced courses in whatever his favorite specialty turns out to be?
Is EE an engineering field where a Master’s degree is good, bad, neutral? Should he be thinking ahead about a 5th year MS or something like that?
Of course, he is taking advantage of advising opportunities at his school, but I am just interested in hearing the perspectives of people outside UCB who may work or hire in EE. My husband and I have both worked in the tech industry but our careers have been more on the CS / software side, so we aren’t extremely well versed in the career landscape in EE specifically.
Transferring to another school’s ABET accredited EE program is not currently an option being considered, as he seems to be extremely happy and thriving at UCB.
He can easily get the outcomes at UCB from the school and can ask why they moved on from ABET.
I can tell you for MechE, many job apps require ABET. But I always wondered - what if someone sent in a resume from a non-ABET school. Are they checking? Do they really care? The UCB name means something - for sure - to many.
So this isn’t specific to EE but what do you do if you see a job listing that says this that I just pulled off one from Indeed:
What Will You Need:
Bachelors degree in Engineering from an ABET accredited college engineering program
or this:
**Electronics Engineer/ Computer Engineer
Degree: Engineering. To be acceptable, the program must: (1) lead to a bachelor’s degree in a school of engineering accredited by ABET
And that’s sort of what you’re asking - and I’d ask the school.
Sorry - now to your question #2 - I don’t think you can go to a non ABET school and claim - I took the courses. The school is or isn’t. So I would take the courses to graduate and then with electives, take the best for him…it doesn’t change the accreditation part.
Now I read the part where you write - he is taking advantage of advising opportunities at his school, but I am just interested in hearing the perspectives of people outside UCB.
Oops - but i think that’s the right tact. And if the student loves the school, I agree no transfer.
UCB shows a really really really high rank in EE. I have no idea if ABET matters in the field - but I’m guessing once you get career outcomes - you’ll have comfort.
As for the 5th year- it’s early to plan but maybe find out the grad outcomes and how they compare salary wise with the undergrad.
Freedom to structure EECS as an interdisciplinary major, rather than two majors (sets of learning outcomes) in one department. (“We will now be able to develop a unified set of student learning outcomes for our department, rather than having two sets for the two different ABET commissions to which we have been responsible for reporting. As an integrated EECS Department, we are proud of the ways in which our students and faculty can take advantage of the cross-department fertilization that is a hallmark of our departmental structure.”)
Issues with ABET requirements to sort students into ECE, CSE, and CS for reporting purposes. (“We do not have a clear process for distinguishing our EE from our CS students, wanting all of our students to make the most of their experience in this cross-disciplinary major. Therefore, we find their processes that require distinguishing various groups of our students at odds with the goals of our program. Not only does the EAC divide Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and Computer Science and Engineering (CSE), but then the CAC has us separately report on CS. More recently, ABET has introduced the requirement that we produce our evidence about outcomes in terms of numbers of EE students and numbers of CS students meeting each goal. All of our EECS students receive a Bachelor of Science in Engineering degree, and while we do allow them to designate a computer science emphasis for their transcripts, many of them do so only late in their careers. Campus data does not distinguish between our students, so any sorting must be done by hand at this point.”)
I get the feeling that for UCB and Stanford (another non-ABET EE program), these departments see themselves as shaping the industry, rather than being shaped by the requirements of existing jobs. No comment on whether this is the right or wrong attitude, it is what it is
I’m sure there are plenty of jobs open to UCB EECS majors. What I don’t know is which specific fields of EE have ABET as more or less a requirement.
For example if my kid wants to work in the semiconductor industry, my impression is that ABET isn’t so important? But if he wants to work in power, or work for the government, ABET might be more important? I really don’t know enough about EE to be sophisticated about its specialty areas. So maybe folks with EE expertise can help tease out the distinctions for me?
I have not seen any need for ABET for EE or CS in the experience of our family.
Me: BSEE, MSCS (UT Austin)
Wife: BSEE (NMSU), MSEE (SMU), MBA (SMU).
Son: BSCS, MSCS (Stanford)
Wife and I have held jobs in defense industry, processor industry, communications, and networking. Son is employed at at startup. ABET was not a requirement in any of these positions.
Stanford does have ABET for mechanical and civil engineering but not for any other fields. I think Cal is the same.
Cal’s chem E is ABET accredited. Cal also has an ABET accredited nuclear engineering program (Stanford doesn’t offer this major).
Materials science is ABET accredited at Cal and not at Stanford, but I doubt ABET is as important for this major, since it seems to me that these kids are for the most part planning on grad school / research.
Industrial engineering is also an ABET accredited major at Cal, but apparently it has become more of an AI-focused major, and ABET is not needed for jobs in AI!
