Why Accreditation?

BCS - The Chartered Institute for IT, is the leading institution for IT and Computing professionals, and if you join BCS, you will have available to you a wide range services and benefits which will assist you throughout your career. You will have the opportunity to gain respected professional qualifications, including CITP, CEng and CSci, and an accredited Honours degree - such as the Computer Science and Computing Systems degrees at Warwick - is the first step to full membership and to being awarded chartered status.

Joining BCS

In order to join BCS as a full member, an applicant must have a sufficient academic background and/or appropriate work experience. The academic criterion can be satisfied either by taking and passing BCS' own examinations, or by successfully completing a degree course which BCS has accredited to exempt the applicant from taking the examinations.

Membership of BCS carries the right to use the designatory letters MBCS, and members with chartered status (which can be applied for after appropriate work experience) may use the title Chartered Information Technology Practitioner (CITP).

Getting CEng/CSci Status

BCS is a licensed body of the Engineering Council and of the Science Council, which means that it may award the professional qualifications of CEng (Chartered Engineer) and CSci (Chartered Scientist) to suitably qualified members of the Society. However, the academic basis for CEng/CSci is more onerous than for professional membership, and requires four years of study. This can either be in the form of a four year degree course (an MEng) or a three year BSc followed by postgraduate study.

Degree Course Exemptions/Accreditations

The following apply to students who commenced their course in October 2005 or later. The status of the "with intercalated year" degrees is identical to their non-intercalated counterparts. A summary of the accreditation for previous cohorts is available.

Notes

1. Subject to passing the third year project without compensation.
   
2. Subject to passing the fourth year group project without compensation.
   
3. An extra year of study (a "matching section") is required for full CEng/CSci accreditation.
4. Also CITP Further Learning Element.