this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2026
50 points (98.1% liked)

CSCareerQuestions

2403 readers
1 users here now

A community to ask questions about the tech industry!

Rules/Guidelines

Related Communities

Credits

Icon base by Skoll under CC BY 3.0 with modifications to add a gradient

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
ericjmorey@programming.dev
odium@programming.dev
50
My Parent doesn't want me doing CS, or CE, because they feel the job market will disappear come 7 years. (lemmy.world)
submitted 3 days ago by aunchers@lemmy.world to c/cs_career_questions@programming.dev
49 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Basically Title.
I love CS, I love designing systems, programming, some cyber and math.
The problem is, I am due to admit into CS this year (4 year program). My Parent's will be funding a majority of it (~2 years, + RESP). And one of my parents, thinks CS won't have many jobs come 7 years?
Why? Because AI will take them all (or is more likely to take them all). That AI is expanding at a rapid pace, and they will slowly but surely take the hardware designing jobs, the programming jobs, and pretty much all the jobs except the administration ones. I have a poor time putting into words what I would like to do in the future (cause I love lots of things related to CS) but I say thing a bit on the technical side, and this parent says that if I cant explain it to them than I don't understand it and that they understand (more to me) what will happen to the market due to their age

I am not saying they're wrong to any of this by the way, I'm just looking for advice on if they're right, and if not, why?

I don't think I'll ever give up doing CS because its something I love with all my heart.
But if I'm not able to convince them, they want me to take a gap and get a different degree (in a less likely to be taken job).
I might be rambling here, but I am genuinely soooo lost.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] BlackAura@lemmy.world 7 points 3 days ago

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.