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I did some reading on the Wikipedia page [1]. Before going in, I was aware of two things, namely that they don't accredit universities but individual programs w

I did some reading on the Wikipedia page [1]. Before going in, I was aware of two things, namely that they don't accredit universities but individual programs within universities, and that the engineering professors at my school cared about the accreditation process a lot (which has to be redone periodically). ABET only accredits schools that are already accredited regionally (as you were talking about). ABET itself is a federation of 35 technical societies like the IEEE, ASME, AIAA, AIChE, etc. An ABET accreditation does two things for your school. It represents these societies saying that your program is rigorous enough, and it allows your graduates to become licensed professional engineers [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABET https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABET [2] There are two other accreditations that allow professional licensing according to wikipedia, but they are defined at the state level.

rsj_hn 9y ago
OK, so at Stanford no one cared or heard of ABET -- not anyone that I knew. Maybe at your school they did. I guarantee you that employers don't care, and government officials don't care. It's not like being ABET certified grants you any abilities beyond being ABET certified. E.g. If the American Bar Association doesn't recognize your program, your graduates can't take the bar. There is no such equivalent for ABET -- there is no stick or tangible loss in not being ABET certified, other than possibly some marketing. No grants are not received. No professional organizations refuse entry, etc. Back to the original point, you can't say that because ABET wants X, that the "U.S." Curriculum thus requires X.
- engi_nerd 9y ago
  Government officials DO CARE about ABET. In one of my part lives as an electrical engineer for the Department of Defense, one of the requirements for the position was an engineering degree from an ABET accredited University. I could not have been hired if I had not had a degree from an ABET accredited University. On the program I work as a contractor on now, the government manager is still a little bitter that he cannot be classified as an engineer because he does not have an ABET accredited Bachelor's Degree (he has a Master's in Systems Engineering, but his BS is in Economics).
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - rsj_hn 9y ago
    We are talking about software engineering, not electrical engineering. The topic is whether programmers would benefit from taking an ethics class, and the original poster of this thread said "ABET says you should take it, so yes, in the U.S. it's required", and I said "Who the hell cares about ABET". A reply to this has to be some software engineering department that cares. I know other people in other industries care. But computer science, despite the fact that some call ourselves software engineers, is not accredited like a branch of engineering, and the only reason why ABET is involved in this discussion is marketing, as some people really want to pretend that programming is just another engineering discipline, when really it is a craft, and others on the certifying side really want those fees. So saying, "Hey my uncle was a doctor and he couldn't practice if he wasn't approve by the AMA, therefore programmers have to learn what AMA guidelines suggest -- it's crazy"
    - com2kid 9y ago
      > "ABET says you should take it, so yes, in the U.S. it's required" OK so I should have said "Is a required course in a large number of US universities." > and the only reason why ABET is involved in this discussion is marketing, as some people really want to pretend that programming is just another engineering discipline, when really it is a craft, and others on the certifying side really want those fees. Students want some assurances that their department has an external body maintaining quality standards. For large research universities, less of a problem, "Do findings from the department make front page news?" is a pretty good qualifier. I had a friend of mine in a non-ABET program who was upset that his degree didn't even require math beyond basic trig, arguments about calculus in CS programs aside, hiring companies knew that CS degrees from my friend's University didn't come with the same level of math and science as CS degrees from other universities. Of course this entire thread is about the lack of ethics courses in CS programs, and ABET requires ethics in the curriculum. At some point ABET can't be called completely useless, since they are imposing onto CS programs a class that people seem to generally agree should be present.

rsj_hn 9y ago

OK, so at Stanford no one cared or heard of ABET -- not anyone that I knew. Maybe at your school they did. I guarantee you that employers don't care, and government officials don't care. It's not like being ABET certified grants you any abilities beyond being ABET certified. E.g. If the American Bar Association doesn't recognize your program, your graduates can't take the bar. There is no such equivalent for ABET -- there is no stick or tangible loss in not being ABET certified, other than possibly some marketing. No grants are not received. No professional organizations refuse entry, etc. Back to the original point, you can't say that because ABET wants X, that the "U.S." Curriculum thus requires X.

engi_nerd 9y ago
Government officials DO CARE about ABET. In one of my part lives as an electrical engineer for the Department of Defense, one of the requirements for the position was an engineering degree from an ABET accredited University. I could not have been hired if I had not had a degree from an ABET accredited University. On the program I work as a contractor on now, the government manager is still a little bitter that he cannot be classified as an engineer because he does not have an ABET accredited Bachelor's Degree (he has a Master's in Systems Engineering, but his BS is in Economics).
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- rsj_hn 9y ago
  We are talking about software engineering, not electrical engineering. The topic is whether programmers would benefit from taking an ethics class, and the original poster of this thread said "ABET says you should take it, so yes, in the U.S. it's required", and I said "Who the hell cares about ABET". A reply to this has to be some software engineering department that cares. I know other people in other industries care. But computer science, despite the fact that some call ourselves software engineers, is not accredited like a branch of engineering, and the only reason why ABET is involved in this discussion is marketing, as some people really want to pretend that programming is just another engineering discipline, when really it is a craft, and others on the certifying side really want those fees. So saying, "Hey my uncle was a doctor and he couldn't practice if he wasn't approve by the AMA, therefore programmers have to learn what AMA guidelines suggest -- it's crazy"
  - com2kid 9y ago
    > "ABET says you should take it, so yes, in the U.S. it's required" OK so I should have said "Is a required course in a large number of US universities." > and the only reason why ABET is involved in this discussion is marketing, as some people really want to pretend that programming is just another engineering discipline, when really it is a craft, and others on the certifying side really want those fees. Students want some assurances that their department has an external body maintaining quality standards. For large research universities, less of a problem, "Do findings from the department make front page news?" is a pretty good qualifier. I had a friend of mine in a non-ABET program who was upset that his degree didn't even require math beyond basic trig, arguments about calculus in CS programs aside, hiring companies knew that CS degrees from my friend's University didn't come with the same level of math and science as CS degrees from other universities. Of course this entire thread is about the lack of ethics courses in CS programs, and ABET requires ethics in the curriculum. At some point ABET can't be called completely useless, since they are imposing onto CS programs a class that people seem to generally agree should be present.