One is taking a big risk attending an unaccredited engineering program. Many schools apply for accreditation after starting up engineering programs, and ABET considers the school after (I believe) three graduating classes have been produced. If ABET accredits the school, the accreditation is retroactive to the first class, however, there is no guarantee the school will pursue accreditation, or if it does, no guarantee ABET will accredit the programs for which the school sought the accreditation. In the meantime, the unaccredited engineering degree holder will be overlooked in many cases in favor of accredited degree holders, the federal and state governments will not hire non-ABET degree holders for engineering positions, and if one is pursuing a field in which a Professional Engineer (PE) license is required, the the state engineering examining boards will not permit sitting for the exams. So, why would one attend a non-accredited program?
I would like to point out the fact that an ABET degree is not required to sit for the PE exam in all states. CA, for example does not require an ABET degree, for mechanical at least. It does require more work experience before you are eligible.
That said, I would always recommend ABET for civil and almost always for mechanical.
@Nordicdad - I don’t know about California since I never worked there. California also allows graduates of non-ABA accredited law schools within the state for example to sit for their state bar exam. Frankly, I would not hire a lawyer or an engineer who graduated from an unaccredited school. California apparently has a philosophy of “anything goes”. In any event, having a non-ABET accredited degree will shut the candidate out from many good opportunities including state and federal government positions (when I worked for one of the Federal laboratories for example, and at a later time applying for an engineering position with the state Transit Authority, those agencies specifically required the applicant to hold an ABET-accredited undergraduate engineering degree in addition to PE. Considering that the vast majority of engineering programs in the United States are accredited, in my view it makes absolutely no sense to attend one that is unaccredited, even if the school claims that it is going to seek the accreditation.
That said, I recommend all engineering students attend an ABET accredited program, regardless of the engineering specialty (mine is EE and engineering physics for example).
@washugrad
RE; Study abroad in engineering fields. See this unique world-wide project center program at a STEM university @ https://www.wpi.edu/project-based-learning/global-project-program.
Students prepared ahead for specific overseas project research and then go to one of 46 locations with a team to work exclusively on a real problem solution. It works very well for engineering majors. it is typically done in the Junior year.
@Engineer80 Not exactly. It’s true that California professional licensing boards have a reputation for unusual flexibility when it comes to educational requirements – but they have also a reputation for unusual rigor when it comes to examination requirements.
For example, any lawyer will tell you that California Bar Exam is one of the most difficult in the country – many would call it the hardest. California also has tougher Civil PE exam requirements than other states (in practice, most PEs are civils). California uses the same FE and Civil PE exams as other states – but California also requires civils to pass a state-specific exam on surveying, plus a particularly difficult state-specific exam on seismic design. PEs from other states routinely complain about the difficulty of getting licensed in CA; you can’t get reciprocity for civil practice unless you pass the civil PE exam specifically, plus you have to pass the CA-specific surveying and seismic exams.
Furthermore, if you want a CA geotechnical license, that’s another 8-hour exam on top of the civil PE license. If you want a structural license, then that’s a 16-hour exam on top of the civil PE license. A California structural engineering license requires 37 hours of examinations total, and is probably the single hardest professional engineering license to obtain in the US. Yes, you could theoretically qualify for it with a non-ABET degree, but this is uncommon in practice.
Seems like the most likely way that could happen is if an immigrant with a non-US BS in civil engineering (not accredited by ABET or a mutually recognized accreditor listed at http://www.ieagreements.org/accords/washington/signatories/ or http://www.abet.org/global-presence/mutual-recognition-agreements/engineering-bilateral-engineers-canada/ ), possibly with an MS or PhD in the US (not generally ABET accredited), wants to get a PE license.
Actually, California (and certain other states) will allow you to sit for the state bar exam if you’ve never attended law school at all.
in the 19th Century, most people qualified as lawyers through apprenticeship (i.e. years of work experience under a lawyer or judge), rather than by going to a school. The apprenticeship pathway is still on the books in some states. It’s not commonly used in practice, but the people who manage to succeed by this route tend to be pretty good. In Vermont, one of the sitting justices on the state Supreme Court (Hon. Skoglund) never went to law school.
Similarly, you could get a PE license in California without any engineering degree (accredited or unaccredited) if you had years of relevant work experience under PEs. Again, this is not a common route to the PE, but I know a science PhD who did it after years of work at an engineering consulting firm. He has a very strong academic background in science, but has literally never taken a formal class in engineering.
As for study abroad, Georgia Tech (and I have to believe others as well) has their own campus in France. Students take engineering classes there, plus more commonly take some of their required humanities courses. Study abroad generally does not mess with their sequencing, and doesn’t add years to the degree (though many GT students go more than 4 for other reasons). Don’t automatically assume that engineers can’t study abroad like anyone else.
SMU sounds exactly like a type of institution for you worth a look.