This subject is constanly on top of mind for out three children and their friends.
Our oldest son graduated in the spring of '24 from a top-tier university. He switched majors entering his Junior year from Econ to study in the School of Education and Social Policy which was unique to his University. His career goal for this major was to get into Human Capital consulting.
'24 was a tough hiring cycle in general due to other factors and AI was just beginning to be impactful. He ended up through a lot of networking and a lot of nos getting a job in a small consulting firm < 200. He consults for big law firms on how to attract and retain talent.
When he started over two years ago the company had eight full-time computer programmers and now they have one who uses AI to write all the code. He trained and set up my son and three others in his section to use AI to write custom software solutions for the clients they consult for.
While AI has eliminated CS jobs it has allowed his company to be more productive and grow their business. They have hired three new people in my son’s department in the last six months to handle new opportunities. Our son seems to be in a strong position for now. He was reached out to by a bigger firm and is advancing quickly in his current one. The biggest asset he has going for him is the rolodex of contacts he has acquired over the last two years. CS used to be the top degree and now it’s at the bottom. Also, outside of accounting finance majors are struggling a great deal.
His younger brother is a Freshman who wanted to finance but is doing a “softer skill” business program who and his sister is a Sophomore who went from hard science into science that has to do with policy. This seems to be a trend within their friend groups.
I’m of the view that it is too hard to predict at this point which fields will be impacted by AI in what ways in the long-term. I have always thought all students should focus on developing what you call “soft skills.” Even in the go-go years of CS, those who advanced the most in the long term were those who had great people skills, communication skills, ability to see problems from multiple perspectives, creativity, innovation and adaptability.
Moreover, I’ve often wondered what percentage of the people majoring in CS and STEM generally over the last 2 decades actually wanted to work in those areas as opposed to just picking those fields because they thought they’d make more money. A significant cohort certainly love science, CS and engineering. But I can’t imagine the tremendous increase in STEM majors and decline in humanities majors is because a whole generation were suddenly inherently disinterested in humanities.
Lastly, with a kid in college I know that a huge percentage of people change majors and a huge percentage of graduates do not even work in the field of their major, so I try not to worry about what my kid will major in. In some ways, AI is helpful in that endeavor because no field is clearly safe from the AI workplace revolution that seems likely to come in the next few years. So, I think she should study what she wants, but as always focus on developing those “soft skills” in addition to gaining AI fluency as a skill.
My observation is that a significant chunk of CS majors ended up there because they don’t like body fluids (so medicine was out) and they don’t like dense reading/writing (so law school was out) and mom and dad were applying pressure for something high earning and practical. Sometimes it works out- it’s a huge field and even with hiring down, there are a lot of different places and sectors to deploy those skills. And sometimes it doesn’t, and you either have young people who hate their jobs (which happens in every function and in every industry) or who pivot. And of course- the underemployed (at every Genius Bar in the country- alongside the “mommy hours” workers you’ve got the CS grads who couldn’t find an actual CS job but can put on their resume that they are working at Apple). The downturn in tech hiring has helped industries like credit card, insurance, etc. but they can staff their IT departments and help desks with overqualified folks. (you don’t need a degree in CS to help Joe in the Corporate Benefits department reformat a wonky spreadsheet).
Someone should inform Anthropic and OpenAI, two of the leading developers of generative AI. Between them, they have hundreds of open software engineering positions they’re actively recruiting for.
Not sure that “hundreds of open software positions” at 2 AI giants will meet the national and international supply of CS applicants, especially if CS jobs in other market segments dry up.
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That wasn’t my point. There’s an oversupply of CS grads relative to the market, and the nature of software jobs is changing.
But AI isn’t eliminating the need for strong software engineers.
I’ll just quickly add the basic question of whether you should pick the latest hot major or focus more on fundamental skills development is not at all new. In my lifetime, I think of there being three great boom and bust stories that led to such discussions being widespread, CS, Bio, and Econ.
And I do tend to think the answer is always pretty much the same. Pretty much everyone should be focused at least in part on fundamental skills development regardless of major. And then it is OK to pick a hot major if it really makes sense for you individually, but doing it just because it is hot is often a mistake.