As someone who let their parents influence their degree choices, DON’T LET THEM DECIDE FOR YOU!!! (please read that not as yell but the unhinged screaming of a man with 20 years of regret).

The only person in your life that will make a decision in your best interest is you. Other people will always be motivated by their own wants, needs, and views. Your parents views on AI and CS are likley not well informed.

I’m a technical lead for an AI-based startup and enthusiast about AI. I’ve been in software development for about 30 years. I’m responsible for making sure my teams use AI in their development process and enabling them and measuring the results. So from the perspective of your average lemming, I am biased towards AI and all of the terrible things it heralds, and probably literally Satan. I want you to keep that perspective in mind as you read my thoughts.

AI can create simple applications well. Of there is a tedious part of your job that takes time and focus away from your key job duties, AI can probably write a Python script to automate that for you.

The capabilities of AI are continuing to expand through breaking your ask up into multiple smaller tasks and executing them and verifying the output. However the ability of AI is growing at a smaller exponent than the cost. AI is not sustainable currently. At some point, the true cost of all the data center construction, hardware, electricity, etc will have to be passed on to customers and AI development projects will become vastly more expensive.

AI doesn’t think and doesn’t learn (though RAG pipelines can make it more effective) which means it can’t learn through failure. The number of times it has led me in a circle because it doesn’t know how to fix something and keeps trying different things until it has spent $10-20 in tokens just to reinvent the original problem is high.

The hardest parts of development aren’t working the code. The hardest parts are translating requirements into code. Identifying and reasoning about edge cases. Planning and architecting. Identifying design tradeoffs and recommending / picking the right one. Coordinating with stakeholders.

AI can help with those tasks but it can’t do those tasks. AI might slightly reduce the number of CSEs in the world a bit, but it will never, ever replace a significant number of us. It can’t. The code it produces sucks without knowledgeable human guidance.

My teams are seeing a 10-12% self-reported productivity gain (or will take a few months before we have verifiable velocity management so take that with a grain of salt). We are aspiring to maybe 25% productivity gains on greenfield development. But to be honest that’s the company line. I’m hopeful but skeptical we will see even that. I use AI every day and it is helpful in lots of ways, but you have to recognize when it’s going off the rails or doing the wrong thing.

I’m actually in the middle of reviewing a draft acceptance criteria for a project I’m leading. It read all of the technical requirements and diagrams. It missed a bunch of stuff, got a bunch of stuff wrong, and most of what’s left is not written for the right audience — this should be a product owner document that doesn’t require examining code or databases to determine success, but because much of what we have is technical documentation, that’s what it wrote everywhere.

I know this is getting long, but I want you to understand CSE jobs aren’t going anywhere for a bunch of reasons. It remains a great field. There is likely to be some pain in the industry over the next few years as CEOs learn we cannot be replaced so easily, but if you are just getting started, I have a feeling you might enter the market on the other side of that just as there is a big hiring boom as they realize they’ve fucked up.

Good luck!

My three decades of software engineering experience tells me that getting a degree in CS is still quite worth it and anyone who says otherwise is talking out of their ass.

AI will change things, but not the way the doomsayers think and certainly not the way the bandwagoning idiot CEOs think. It will become a tool, yet another one, in our arsenal. If it replaces humans, then good riddance to the moron CEOs and the companies who decide that.

This is a bit of apples and oranges, but I remember when people lost their shit over npm. And those of us who have been in the field for quite some time are like “wtf is wrong with you people? It’s just a package manager — a concept that has existed for at least two decades” by then.

People jump on the next big thing because they have the attention span of a squirrel and the anxiety and ignorance of one as well.

I wish people would stop treating college like job training. Study what you’re most passionate about and interested in. Study whatever you would not regret studying, even if you never got a job related to that thing. Without “networking” I do think it will be very hard to find your first job related to CS for the foreseeable future (it’s been like that before as well).

In seven years, the world will long for people who can still program to fix the stuff “AI” cooked up.

CS will go in a several different directions:

• Some will be over AI agents to make high value, low risk things
• Some will be after AI agents to trouble shoot and repair
• Some will build stuff completely without AI just cause

There’s gonna be room for all of those in industry. Companies are gonna move away from large scale general solutions and expect boutique in house software that does exactly what they need to be developed with the help of AI and others are gonna expect human maintenance in legacy languages.

The trades will always be available, but so will developers–it’s the balance of expectations and the tools we use that are changing–same as always.

Personally, I hate it. I still do my development by hand, though I’ve had to learn to use the tools for compliance.

I’ve spent the last year job searching and I’ve been made to feel like my degree isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. I’ve applied to hundreds of openings that claim to be entry level, only to get the same form letter back telling me they’ve decided to go with a more qualified applicant. Haven’t even landed a single interview. Feels like I can’t get experience because I don’t have experience.

I won’t tell you not to pursue your passion, I got my degree in CS because I sincerely enjoy programming. But do be aware that the job market is hell right now, and it may only get worse.

Other comments are right that AI shouldn’t be replacing programmers, but they aren’t really answering the question of whether you can get a job. It’s not that AI will completely replace all programmers, but employers do seem to think they don’t need entry-level roles anymore, and the supply of fresh grads outpaces the demand of job openings. If all you have is a degree and nothing else, you’ll have a very hard time getting a foot in the door.

My best advice I can offer is to get at least one internship under your belt before you graduate. Most internship positions explicitly say they’re only for current students, so you have a limited time to get something you can put on your resume. I feel like that was my mistake and now it’s too late for me.

Stability doesn’t exist. You can’t plan for shit. As long as there are obscenely rich people you don’t have a future worth planning for anyway.

Just do whatever you want.

Software dev with over 17 years experience here, who also uses AI a lot in his job.

Why? Because AI will take them all (or is more likely to take them all).

People are pretty stupid

How the hell would AI be able to take over… without people with CS skills to… make the… AI?

Its literally like claiming that engineers jobs will be taken over by robots… Who is going to make and design the robots…?

AI isnt going to take over our jobs, AI is a tool we use to do our jobs better/faster.

Its akin to what happened with carriage drivers when the automobile was invented. Horses lost their jobs, for sure, but cab drivers now vastly outnumber how many horse carriages we used to have.

When the cost and time to do a job goes down, demand goes up exponentially because budgets follow a curve, down to a breaking point but a breaking point we arent anywhere remotely close to.

When you halve the cost of your product, you MORE than double your demand because as price goes down, the buyers who can afford you go up EXPONENTIALLY.

So don’t worry about it, but you DO need to extremely critically be very aware of and be ready to learn how to use AI.

Also, a Comp Sci degree is a theoretical math degree focused on the theory of programming. Its not recommended for a practical path in life if you want to be actually making software.

Computer Sciences: Publishing papers on math theory with respect to AI, Encryption, Math, Game Theory, Set Theory, stuff like that

Computer Engineering: Designing and building hardware, and creating firmware for it. ESp32s and Arduinos go BRRRRRR. Get read to solder stuff.

Software Engineering: I wanna make programs that do stuff for people, but I demand a higher salary and in turn am eligible for more advanced work where peoples lives and safety might be at stake. However, I have to spend an extra 40 to 50 grand to get this title.

Software Developer: I wanna make programs too, but Im not gonna spend 40 grand on a fancy ring I can show off at parties and I cant call myself an “engineer” or I might get in trouble, but unless the stuff Im working on involves human lives/safety or mission critical things like bank software, no one gives a shit. You’ll make less money but also have a waaay eaiser time finding work

Make sure you know which one you want and pick accordingly.

I have a story for you. I wanted to do art, I tried to do art, my parents made me do computer science. It was easier to get a job, it paid better, it was more stable. And yeah, those are all things that were true at the time. I got into computing.

Now, a decade and a bit later, I was made redundant, and the bottom fell out of the tech industry. The art industry isn’t fairing much better. Which inevitable industry crash did I avoid?

Just do what your passion lies in. It doesn’t matter too much exactly what, but if it gets you over the line regarding getting a degree, it’s a hell of a start.

You definitely should do some degree, but it doesn’t have to be a compsci one - is my personal take.

I did myself personally do a compsci degree, but to get into software it turned out to be quite unnecessary - if you are already building things and contributing to projects then just like being an artist the strength of your experience and your portfolio matter far more than your on-paper qualifications.

There’s also the consideration that in computing especially, the industry moves so fast that a lot of what you learn at uni may already be old by the time you learn it, making actual experience and portfolio even more valuable.

In the company I work for, there are brilliant software engineers who have degrees in music and language, and even a former medical doctor!

Point is, if you want to get into software a compsci degree isn’t the main factor. You should do some degree, but study whatever you believe will bring you the most joy and personal fulfilment - and if the answer to that is actually compsci then great.

Pivot towards embedded electronics or robotics. It’s 90% programming.

What is their “reasonable” alternative that won’t be impacted by AI?

We are already 3 years into ‘in 3 months AI will replace all programmers’.
The only reason why there is even such a big AI hype in CS in the first place is the nearly endless demand for software. It does not matter how horrible your software is, as long as it kind of does something, there is a demand for it. And all AI can do is satisfy this “demand” for small scale, broken and unmaintainable software. Everything that is a bit more sofisticated needs a human software developer.

Will this change in 7 years? Maybe, but not because of the current AIs since they have plateuaued. All we do is increase training massively or let the models run on stronger/more hardware for “better” results. Both of these ways increase costs massively but “result” improvements are marginal.

So unless there is a big new technological discovery, which can happen in any field at any time, AI will not replace software development jobs.

Honestly if you’re truly passionate about it, just do it.

I graduated university in 2007 with a B Sc. in Software Engineering because I was passionate about it and still going strong. I’ve been through 3 layoffs over my career and just find something else in the industry.

I’ll admit the AI stuff bothered me at first but I’ve seen how it’s a force multiplier in the hands of certain people and I’m slowly warming up to it. I’m learning flux, k8s, and helm charts and whatnot for my home server and it’s been a life saver. That’s a bit more on the devops side of things but I think it will be a good skill to have.

I know people who went into the industry for money specifically when they were deciding what to take a lt school and those are the people who are more worried about layoffs and whatnot. I also know people who started CS or Engineering and moved out of it because they realized it wasn’t for them. One particular person jumped over to history and sure they aren’t earning as much but they sure seem happy with where their life has ended up.

I think if you’re passionate and willing to learn there will always be some niche you’ll be able to find.

Are there problems in the industry? Yes. Do I think we should have unionized when we had the chance? Absolutely. Does it seem like that are laying people off to do salary resets? 100%. Is AI growing at a crazy rate? Yes. Will all our jobs be taken over by AI in 7 years? Nope!

The industry might shrink. Some people will change career paths. Some people will find their niche. There will still be rockstars (both passion and ability) and there will still be people who are just doing it for the money.

P. S. Maybe you can pivot to Engineering? Your first year or two is usually a solid base set of broad engineering skills, like matrices, calculus, chemistry, statics/dynamics, fluids/solids/gasses, discrete math, etc. Then in your second year you start specializing (my U people could do Computer Eng if they wanted to do more hardware design and embedded stuff, or Software Eng if they preferred coding). Your parents might see more value in that than a CS degree (which is usually more theoretical stuff though lots of colleges and universities also teach systems design and coding). Based on your listed skills and interests I think you might get more value from it too.