ABET certification

[Pikachumonster]

How important is it? I'm planning on majoring in materials science; I just looked on the abet website and neither Caltech nor Rice are certified, so I'm hoping it's not that big a deal since my school is one of the above mentioned.

 

[NutBucket]

Yeah, it matters. Not sure it matters much since Rice and Caltech are hardly unknowns though.

 

[MrBond]

They just re-accredited my undergrad college. They made a big deal about it when the people overseeing the process were here, saying that we should care about the reaccreditation process because if we lost it our "degrees would be worthless".

Interesting to see that Caltech and Rice aren't accredited through ABET though. Maybe it doesn't matter the type of accreditation, so long as there is some semi-prestigious one involved.

 

[fbrdphreak]

It was a big deal at NCSU last time they were up.

 

[aswedc]

If a program that isn't traditional engineering like materials science isn't certified it isn't really a big deal. But the department must have certification for programs like CE, EE, or ME to have any credibility. And of course both Caltech and Rice do.

 

[MrBond]

Here's some information from Wikipedia (about accreditation in general:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_accreditation

Many state engineering boards also require you graduate from an ABET accredited school in order to become an Engineer in Training (first steps towards getting your PE). The website with all the state boards is here:

http://www.ncees.org/licensure/licensing_boards/

Check that out and see if your state (or a state you might work in) requires it.

 

[flyboy84]

Have you ever seen job descriptions that say "Require BS*E (insert letter for type of engineering) from an accredited college or university?" That means ABET accredited.