I’m a senior in high school right now and definitely need to consider what I’m going to do in college and for work.

For a very long time I’ve been into computers, and am a developer with a few big projects under my belt (this is a burner account for privacy). So, my logical choice for a while was to become a software developer professionally.

Nowadays that plan doesn’t look too promising. AI has basically replaced junior developers (with dubious results) and the competition has gotten much fiercer. I’m not even in college yet so I have a good amount of time to potentially pivot to something else before choosing a major.

I’ve got quite a bit of experience with Linux and I manage a home server, but that probably doesn’t differentiate me much. I’m honestly interested in most things computer related, but don’t know of any specific fields to seek out. If it’s so hard for fresh CS graduates to get jobs, why would any other option be different?

  • spectrums_coherence@piefed.socialEnglish
    141·
    20 hours ago

    I have a controversial take and a very bold guess: CS principle will be more important than ever when you graduate college.

    1. CS enrollment is way down especially in the U.S. because of AI scare.
    2. Old programmers are mostly retired during the AI hype period

    Both of these mean that the supply of programers will be way down when you graduate.

    1. AI have been slopping out code that might break within couple years. We have seen many service degrade, but not much critical failure yet, these could come later.
    2. Most open source project has began to ban pure LLM contributions. Even Rust disallow LLM-generated code with very minor exceptions. Likely company are going to do the same
    3. People who go to a simple coding bootcamp will not be competitive when LLM is in the picture, nobody need a programmer to “make the button bigger” anymore.

    All these said, the demand for “good programmer” likely will not go down. If you study hard, do side projects, and build connection during college, you will likely be at a huge advantage after 3 or 4 years.

    Of course, there will also be risks, i.e. that LLMs actually wipe out all programming jobs, which it is unlikely, but also not impossible.