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If you search back through this forum you'll see that same message repeated many times (ok, I admit mostly by me!), you might find some useful clarification there.
Regarding future career, in my experience you are unlikely to find that employers have any interest at all in whether degree programmes are accredited or not, what they are concerned about is what you actually learned on them. That said, if you have ideas on which direction your career might take it is worth looking up adverts on job sites (e.g. LinkedIn) to see what qualifications are asked for, some specific industry sectors do have their own favourite requirements.
Hope that helps,
Andy
Now, I see that the MSc in Advanced Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College doesn't flag up on the Engineering Council website for searching for accredited courses by any of the PEIs, and they (Imperial) should be contacted to find out why not? In the mean time entering 'MSc in Advanced Mechanical Engineering' in the search field shows up a number of universities offering accredited courses. Queen Mary in London flags up as an alternative option to Imperial and is accredited by the IMechE. Other accredited MSc in Mechanical Engineering courses in London also appear in the search list.
In order to be internationally recognised by the Washington Accord will require a partially accredited BEng and a partially accredited MSc award.
David Parr:
Just to say, Andy, we should be directing people to use UK-Spec issue 3 at the moment :)
Hi David,
I deliberately used issue 4 this time because of the distance the OP was from applying! But you're right, I should have made that clear (nearly did but I was being quizzed on why I was typing messages that late in the evening :) )
Cheers,
Andy
mbirdi:
Now, I see that the MSc in Advanced Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College doesn't flag up on the Engineering Council website for searching for accredited courses by any of the PEIs, and they (Imperial) should be contacted to find out why not?
I'm sure they are getting approached regularly about this - I suspect (but don't know) that they feel they already have an excellent reputation so why put themselves through the hassle. It's been a fair few years since I had any involvement in University accreditation (I was involved from the Uni side rather than the IET side), I remember at the time the Unis involved felt they were being asked to jump through hoops which they considered (rightly or wrongly) were not always connected with giving a good teaching experience, and so had to keep considering whether this hassle was worth a potential increase in student numbers i.e. income. As I say, I don't know how Unis feel about the accreditation process today, but absolutely I hope the PEIs are keeping in touch with those Unis who decide its not for them to find out why - and are listening carefully to the answers. (Similar to the question of why the vast majority of engineers don't go for professional registration - it's important to understand why they don't feel the benefits are worth the hassle.)
Ref Washington Accord, that's a very interesting point about which I know absolutely nothing - worth another thread to discuss?
Cheers,
Andy
mbirdi:
In order to be internationally recognised by the Washington Accord will require a partially accredited BEng and a partially accredited MSc award.
Could you explain what the impacts of this would/could be if you wished to work abroad?
When you compare the pdf files, you will see the difference between a fully developed and accredited course and a course that's at the experimental stage.
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/staff/tools-and-reference/quality-assurance-enhancement/programme-information/programme-specifications/
There's also students blog and forum sites to give you an insight of what it's like to study at IC.
https://wwwf.imperial.ac.uk/blog/student-blogs/
https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=18
You may have read that the two top performing students from the MSc programs will be offered a PhD scholarship where expenses are paid for tuition fees and maintenance allowance.
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mechanical-engineering/study/msc-advanced-mechanical-engineering/
As for being able to work abroad without international accreditation? I don't see any real evidence it could hinder you; certainly not if you're working for a large well known company, and also your IC degree will also have international recognition. But if you're interested in this course I would pursue chasing IC about whether the 2021-2022 course will be fully accredited by the IET or IMechE.
mbirdi:
But if you're interested in this course I would pursue chasing IC about whether the 2021-2022 course will be fully accredited by the IET or IMechE.
But begging the question: what are they going to do if it isn't, or if (which is more likely) there's no response? I'd suggest the answer is that this should not be a reason in itself not to take up this course (for all the reasons we've all given above), it might be a small bit of evidence in a wider argument as to whether to take it or not.
I think my main feeling is, both to this and another similar thread that's running alongside, it's a stressful time trying to choose the right course, so anything that can reduce that stress is a good thing. In many years of recruiting engineers, and of helping engineers achieve Chartership (and IEng), personally I have never seen the accreditation of a degree make any difference whatsoever. So if that's one thing that can be ticked off the "things to get stressed about" list that's got to be a good thing. HOWEVER all the caveats above stand about checking that this is true for all industry sectors and all countries. I'll start another thread on the countries aspect and see what happens...
Thanks,
Andy
Accreditation is carried out in accordance with Engineering Council regulations and guidance. The regulations are developed by academics, for academics, accreditation “audit” visits are also carried out by panels with strong academic representation, responsible to the IET Academic Accreditation Committee.
About a dozen years ago, I became involved in an initiative for which Engineering Council had received government funding. This was called “Engineering Gateways” and partner universities offered programmes called “MSc in Professional Engineering”. Because each programme of study was individually bespoke and designed around work-based learning opportunities, accreditation was deemed impractical. To work around this it was agreed that institutions would deem each individual study plan “acceptable” to them as “further learning”.
The IET developed a simple mechanism to deal with this, but some other institutions were mired in pedantry. Until about 15 years ago, many professional engineering institutions were infamous for being very “snooty” about their “academic requirements” and some key influencers within them were unwilling to accept the change of attitude that was needed. How each has subsequently evolved is open to debate?
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